Punctuation for thee and me

Bringing reason to a full stop

The back page of a recent Answers Update (Vol. 18, No. 6) carries a bright little apologetic nugget by Ken Ham himself, the strikingly australopithecine leader of Answers in Genesis. Ham is talking about the earth's effing magnetic field. How does it work?

[G]eophysical and archaeological evidence indicates that 1,000 years ago, the magnetic field of the earth was 40% stronger than today. This field is actually decaying at a rate of 5% per century.

The decay rate may not sound like much, but it's a very important factor in determining the age of the earth. Using the current rate of decay, it's been calculated that just a million years ago, the magnetic field would have been so strong that it would have melted the planet! ...

Creationist physicists declare that the magnetic field is a very strong indicator that our planet cannot be any older than 10,000 years. This, of course, confirms the roughly 6,000-year timeline in the book of Genesis.

Please don't be distracted by Ham's use of amusing little oxymorons like “creationist physicists.” We can easily detect what he is up to. There's a useful word to describe the theoretical foundation for Ham's argument:

Uniformitarianism.

Obvious. Right? Ham is assuming that conditions affecting the earth's magnetic field have remained exactly the same throughout history. What else is that besides uniformitarianism? Of course, Ham might beg to differ. Let's see how he described uniformitarianism in the 1987 edition of his book The Lie: Evolution:

Geologists have the idea that the processes we see operating in the present world have been going on for millions of years at essentially the same rate, and will probably go on for millions of years into the future as well. The technical word used in geology for this belief is “uniformitarianism.” For example, the desert museum in Tucson, Arisona, not only has a display for people to see what supposedly has happened over the past millions of years, but it also has a display of what many scientists believe will happen to Arizona over the millions of years yet to come!

Evolutionists, atheistic and theistic, use the phrase “the present is the key to the past.” In other words, they say that the way to understand the past is to observe what happens in the present.”

Bingo! Ham's magnetic-field argument for a young earth is a page ripped right out of the uniformitarianism playbook. He stands self-accused.

One imagines that Ham might wish to quibble. He could claim that he was using a reductio ad absurdum argument—or proof by contradiction—having demonstrated that the assumption of uniformitarianism leads to an impossibly high level of magnetic flux in the prehistoric past.

Sorry. That won't work. He is not just arguing that an old earth is impossible. Ham explicitly declares that some simple computations provide evidence consistent with a young earth. He is making a “pro” argument for his position every bit as much as he is making a “con” argument against his opponents (which constitute 99% of the scientific community).

Ham may not like uniformitarianism, but he is certainly willing to use it when it suits him. Perhaps he needs to create a new label for it. May I suggest “punctuated uniformitarianism”? He can use it to argue that physical laws and natural processes are uniform between occasional catastrophes—like his magnetic-field argument.

E.T. goes to hell

Therefore he doesn't exist

Sound reasoning is a good basis for religious beliefs, wouldn't you say? So what about this example? It's from the first 2011 issue of Answers magazine from those geniuses at Answers in Genesis:

Because Adam's sin affected the whole universe, it would also affect any alien. But as nonhumans, aliens would not be eligible for salvation (this is one reason we are confident that intelligent aliens do not exist). So baptizing an alien would be pointless at best, and a mockery at worst. Jesus did not die for Martians—only descendants of Adam can be saved.

See? Simple, isn't it?

So is Ken Ham, who offers this profound observation:

Secular astronomers claim that the universe evolved slowly over billions of years. But this conclusion does not come from the facts they see but from the assumptions they must make to interpret the unseen past. This issue of Answers, written by leading creation astronomers, shows how the facts actually line up with God's account of a recent creation but can't be explained by evolution over billions of years.

Ken's tight reasoning suffers only from prolixity. I can help him shorten his statement by removing excess words. For example, for “secular astronomers” read “astronomers.” For “creation astronomers,” read “cranks.”

All better now.

Atheists believe in god?

The Creation “Museum” visit gets noticed

Not all of the right-wingers at Free Republic are creationists. Some of the “Freepers” mixed it up after an item was posted on the visit by PZ Myers and 300 other nonbelievers to Ken Ham's pseudoscientific exposition. As one of them said, “The word museum is in quotes in the title thread with good reason.” A more devout Freeper responded with a biblical quote (of course):

Same old (yawn) debate.

Atheists make a determined choice to disbelieve in God. I've studied their "evidence." It's not evidence. It's mere guesswork.

That said, I guess I'll defer to Solomon: "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." (Ps 14:1)

They're just not very good people and of necessity have chosen to reject God so as not to impede their sinful choices.

Why would we care what any such people think about God?

The truth is, they instinctively know God exists. Why else would they spend so much time trying to convince everyone He does not exist?

16 posted on Sunday, August 09, 2009 6:54:04 AM by LouAvul

What is this, exactly? Proof by contradiction? You say No, so you must mean Yes? (These guys must be great fun on a date.) He says he “studied” the evidence. Does that mean he didn't?

I think it's perfectly all right to mock something that doesn't exist. (Sarah Palin's intellect comes to mind. Or William Kristol's correct predictions.)

One additional little point, though, Mr. Freeper: Solomon does not get credit for the book of Psalms. Believers attribute the psalms to King David, Solomon's licentious father.

Of course, by saying “Solomon” maybe you meant “David.”

Yeah.

Creationists beat swords into plowshares

First fruits of creationist truce

Creation Ministries International of Australia agreed last month to bury the hatchet in its years-long dispute with the U.S.-based Answers in Genesis. Either CMI and AiG tapped into some unsuspected well of Christian charity, or both sides got tired of their attorneys tapping into their bank accounts.

What has the AiG-CMI “kiss of peace” wrought? Well, first of all, the two sides have stopped saying nasty things about each other. As a result, CMI no longer accuses AiG's Ken Ham of using deception to steal the subscribers of CMI's Creation magazine when he launched Answers magazine in 2007. Although he did. Ham presented Answers as a successor to Creation and not as a rival. If one read only AiG's mailings, it appeared that Creation was being discontinued, when all that was ending was Ken Ham's willingness to continue to distribute it to his U.S. membership base. For his part, Ham treats the controversy with delicate diffidence in a post on the AiG website:

While the intent was to offer both the Australian-published Creation magazine and the new U.S.-published Answers magazine (sometime in 2008 or 2009) as two options for its subscribers, irreconcilable differences arose concerning the printing and distribution of Creation magazine in the United States. AiG-U.S. as a result had to modify its strategic plan to offer just the new Answers magazine, rolling it out two–three years ahead of schedule. While this regretfully meant that Creation would no longer be distributed through AiG-U.S., the prospect of continuing subscriptions through the provision of a brand-new, culturally relevant, apologetics-based periodical (with an enhanced worldview emphasis) was exciting. AiG-U.S. was also very encouraged to learn of the excitement generated about the new magazine as expressed by overwhelmingly positive feedback from its subscribers.

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For the most part, the settlement appears to be a victory for Ham, but this month there's evidence of the sop that CMI received to assuage its misery. AiG has used its mailing list to send a complimentary copy of the current Creation magazine to anyone who used to receive it from AiG before 2007. A cover note on AiG letterhead tells the story in nicely neutral language:

We have been asked by Creation Ministries International (“CMI”) of Australia to provide you with a complimentary copy of its Creation magazine. As a former subscriber to it, you may want to know that you can re-subscribe to the same publication through CMI, whose contact information is inside the magazine. Creation continues to be published by that Australian organization.

We hope you enjoy it.

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Now that CMI and AiG no longer need to waste precious resources on their long-running legal battle against each other, they can join ranks and present a united front against the evolutionary foe. Surely Darwin's legacy is now doomed!

I know because I read it in the pages of Creation magazine. Or perhaps it was Answers magazine. They're actually difficult to tell apart. But they agree on one thing: the theory of evolution is about to collapse. Its defeat is imminent, just as it has been for several decades.

Oh, and Jesus is due to arrive any second now.

Don't hold your breath.

More creationist lies

You'd think God would mind

Why is it that devout creationists don't feel bound by the absolute truths of God's word? No matter how you divide up the tangled text of Exodus 19, the Ten Commandments always end up containing a rule against bearing false witness. Nevertheless, those who purport to take the Bible seriously barely hesitate before lying about evolution, Darwin, or any other target of their disdain. Apparently it's okay to lie if you're doing it for the greater glory of God.

Tricky.

The second 2009 issue of Answers Update from Answers in Genesis continues AiG's struggle against Darwin in particular and reality in general. The newsletter depicts Lincoln's visage as portrayed by the statue in his memorial in Washington. Across Lincoln's chest they've printed the words, “Our focus this month should be on Lincoln, and not a racist man like Darwin.”

There are at least two problems with the implications of AiG's declaration. Was Darwin a racist while Lincoln was not? The case of the Great Emancipator is a complicated one. Although he abhorred slavery and was the instrument of its abolition in the United States, he was enough a creature of his times that he was willing to go on record in support of the superiority of whites. In the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate, he said, “I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.... I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

Thus Lincoln is not the perfect foil with which to skewer Darwin for any alleged racism. What about the other half of AiG's claim. Was Darwin truly a racist? Answers Update notes that Darwin referred to “degraded” people who were “savage.” That's neither remarkable nor particularly significant, since any well-to-do English gentleman could be expected to so characterize the living conditions of the native of Tierra del Fuego and other primitive lands. (Oh, oh! I just said “primitive”!)

Furthermore, Answers Update tells us that Darwin would rather have descended from a monkey than from a dark-skinned savage. Is this really what Darwin said? The source of this item is a passage in The Descent of Man, in which Darwin said:

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon, who descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

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It seems that Darwin is merely citing man's well-known inhumanity to man and pointing out that humanity is not the exclusive possessor of virtue.

After this bit of quote-mining, AiG offers the following additional evidence:

Also, the subtitle of Darwin's main work On the Origin of Species further reveals his racist beliefs: “The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”

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(AiG added the emphasis to “favoured.”) There is it, then. Darwin stands condemned by his own choice of words.

Except that we know better. And, we suspect, so does Ken Ham, who leveled these accusations against Darwin in his AiG radio program and then echoed them in Answers Update. Darwin is not using “race” in its narrow sense as applied to humans. The word is used in The Origin of Species in a much broader sense. Ham is almost certainly consciously lying when he spins the subtitle of Origin to tar Darwin with the brush of racism.

Consider, if you will, the following excerpts from Darwin's Origin:

Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil—in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the definite action of the poor soil—that they would, to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock.

When we look to the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants, and compare them with closely allied species, we generally perceive in each domestic race, as already remarked, less uniformity of character than in true species.

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You see that? Darwin even applies the word to cabbages. Is he therefore wickedly insulting the Cruciferae (and we could therefore denounce him as a “cruciferist”)?

I don't know what Darwin thought about cabbages in general, so I won't venture an opinion. I will, however, venture the opinion that Ken Ham belongs to the species known as Homo prevaricator.

The Darwin anti-celebration

They have Answers

Under the selective pressure of the great Year of Darwin, creationists are scrambling to adapt and survive. Answers in Genesis has long pretended to be an educational organization. The first issue of AiG's Answers magazine for 2009 is devoted to “teaching” antievolutionists to withstand the thousand natural shocks they will be subject to while the world celebrates the anniversaries of Charles Darwin (his bicentennial) and The Origin of Species (its sesquicentennial).

Darwin himself peers out at us from the cover of Answers (in the form of a detail from the famous John Collier portrait. Inside the magazine, on p. 6, publisher Dale Mason uncaps his pen to scribble a few thoughts under the title “Year of Darwin Opportunity.” Cute.

You see, 2009 is a huge year for evolutionists. They’ve been preparing for it with all the excitement and energy of Beijing’s Olympic committee. Dubbed “the year of Darwin,” 2009 marks Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his infamous book On the Origin of Species.

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Ah, yes, that “infamous” book. Mason can't simply admit that it is one of the greatest works of science of all time. It has to be infamous.

This new year may herald the greatest mockery of the Bible since the Scopes trial “media circus” of 1925. With the world now swimming in anti-God propaganda, the stage is set for evolution to be promoted as never before.

PBS, NPR, BBC, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, tax-funded schools, nearly every natural history museum, and hundreds of secular periodicals—all these and more are poised to idolize this man, Darwin, whose worldview totally rejects the God of the Bible. The combined dollar value of their campaign to further Darwin’s ideas is staggering.

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Actually, I expect there to be rather little mockery of the Bible. I do, however, anticipate quite a bit of mockery of Bible literalists like the pseudoscientists at Answers in Genesis.

Now, it’s late at night, and I have the proofs for this issue laid out before me on my kitchen table. Knowing all the behind-the-scenes obstacles that have nearly derailed this issue, I’m especially delighted with what God has done!

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As anyone who has ever published a magazine knows, it takes divine intervention to get it in print. (So how does Skeptical Inquirer ever get done?)

The articles for the special Darwin section contain intriguing stories and facts that set the story straight. Most of us have never heard the real story.

As parents, educators, and influencers within our churches and communities, we all need to read and share the Bible-upholding, God-honoring truths of this issue. Each article is designed to give you the tools necessary to repel the onslaught of misinformation that you are about to experience.

Friend, if “good people [you] do nothing,” 2009 will very likely be a banner year in the recruitment of new believers in the evolution myth.

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Did you get that, folks? Mason exhorts “good people” to do things in 2009, which I take to mean he wants creationists to get active. You and I and the rest of the sanely scientific population are therefore not “good.” There you have it: Evolutionists are bad people. I knew it all along!

But there is no limit to what God can do to rescue the misinformed, and revive the faith of Christians who have bought into the idea that compromise is an appropriate response.

Compromise on God’s Word was Darwin’s response. And look where that led us.

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Yes. Look where Darwin led us. Let us praise and honor him.

Dollars against Darwin

Getting ready for Darwin Day

Have you made special plans for February 12, 2009, yet? It's not just the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. It's also Charles Darwin's, and the latter's anniversary is setting off a worldwide celebration.

Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis is not a big fan of Darwin, but he knows a fundraising opportunity when he sees one. He sent me a letter warning me about the looming threat of Darwin Day and his need for money with which to combat it. His prose is typically apocalyptic (with lots and lots of bold). The scientists are coming to get you—and your children, too!

Dear Friend,

There’s no question we have a fight on our hands.

I wrote to you recently about Darwin Day, the new global holiday proposed by the worshippers of human reason. Their goal is to indoctrinate the world with molecules-to-man evolution and deny the troth of Genesis chapters 1-11—to undermine Christianity itself. But next year, it will get much worse.

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Human reason has “worshippers”? Perhaps I should pause to genuflect and bow my head. Chest-thumping is optional (though our simian heritage gives us a yen for it).

Although Darwin Day will be February 12, 2009, we know many atheistic organizations will make the whole year a special push to get their ideas into every school and church. You see, next year will be Darwin's 200th birthday, and his book Origin of Species will be 150 years old. Darwin will be “everywhere” next year!

I'm most concerned for our nation's children attending public schools, who will be bombarded with even more evolutionist propaganda than usual in 2009.

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See? Our children are in danger!

We've got the biblical and scientific ammunition we need to stand before the world—and the children of the world—with the truth, especially the gospel. But we do need your continuing help to do it.

It's one thing to have the knowledge and another to distribute it all around the globe, in many languages and many different forms. That takes the dedicated financial support of a lot of people committed to preserving the integrity of God's Word.

With your gift this month, you will help create two new Creation Museum exhibits that help destroy the foundations of evolution ... free-of-charge “Answers for Darwin” conferences that spread the news about Darwin's errors to abroad audience ... radio broadcasts, videos, and more that can rescue thousands of people from a faith-killing belief in evolution.

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It didn't take him long to get to the money-grubbing, did it? But one has to wonder whether sending money to Ken Ham is a good investment for your average creationist. Didn't Ham “destroy the foundations of evolution” a long time ago? Then why won't the damned thing just fall down? The creationists keep tolling evolution's death knell but it continues robustly onward. The Rev. D. James Kennedy chortled as he declaimed, “My friends, evolution is dead coming out of the starting gate,” but Darwin's vigorous offspring is still here and Kennedy is the one who is gone.

And to show you how much I appreciate your support in this critical time, I'll send you our gorgeous 2009 Calendar in thanks for your gift of any amount. The 2009 Calendar itself is a powerful weapon against not only Darwin Day, but all year long, as humanists celebrate throughout 2009. This year, we've filled every month with beautiful color photographs and important information you can use to talk to your children, coworkers, friends, and church about the fallacies in Darwin's theories and confirmations of life's creation by a loving Creator.

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Have you ever armed yourself with a weapons-grade calendar before? The Answers in Genesis calendar for 2009 is evidently a weapon of daft instruction.

For example, in the May page of the calendar, you'll learn how modem scientific studies actually refute Darwin's idea that genetic traits—like the long neck of the giraffe—develop on their own. We know that God created a wide variety of animal kinds with unique traits like the giraffe's, to bring glory to Himself and increase our wonder at His power!

This is the kind of information we need to share with our kids and grandkids: and encourage them to share with their friends—who are regularly bombarded with evolutionary teaching that attacks God's Word.

In fact, this calendar could be one tool God uses to equip a child you love with effective answers to defend their faith and reveal the errors of Darwinian evolution.

I'm asking you to send a gift today so we can get the calendar in the mail to you. The pages start with December 2008, and I don't want you to miss a single month.

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The AiG calendar has thirteen months. Hmm. I'm not sure, but I suspect it's a sin to tamper with time.

But even more, I'm asking for your generous support right now because we have a lot to do to prepare for the Darwin onslaught next year and these attacks on the very foundation of Christianity.

I believe that we can turn the enemy's plans for 2009 inside-out, responding with an overwhelming demonstration of God's sovereignty over human reason. How many people—especially the children—can we show the truth and turn their hearts to their Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ?

Sincerely in Christ,

Ken Ham
President

P.S. Don't forget to request your stunning 2009 Calendar when you send your gift of support today! Your gift will help Answers in Genesis create resources to combat Darwin all year—just as the calendar will prepare you and your family to refute the claims of evolutionists throughout the coming year. Thank you for standing with us at this critical time!

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Thanks anyway, Ken, but I've decided to get a Far Side calendar instead.

Creationism evolves again

AiG responds to selective pressure

When anyone accuses Ken Ham of being pugnacious, the creationist guru of Answers in Genesis knows what to do. He gets in their face and escalates!

Some time ago, a secular reporter accused me of promoting violence. It was because he saw AiG’s classic “castles illustration” we often use, which really sums up the spiritual battle AiG is fighting.

The two castles illustrations are labeled “Problem” and “Solution.” Notice the use of cannons on the castle. Now, I wonder what the same reporter might say if he saw some of the newer diagrams I use in my talks—today I’m using missiles!

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That's right. Ken Ham's slide show has been brought up to date. It's evolved.


Until recently, the canonical version of Ham's castle illustration featured cannons. That's what you see in the accompanying color slide that Ham used in his presentations until recently. It's been around a long time. For example, here's how it looked as a more primitive black-and-white figure from the 1987 edition of The Lie: Evolution, Ham's “classic” broadside against modern science:


As you can see, Creation Castle has been losing ground, going from bad to worse. The 1987 illustration depicts a single piratical figure (a secular humanist, no doubt) aiming Evolution Castle's only cannon at the foundations of Creation Castle (the bedrock afforded by Christ). An ineffectual sidekick hovers in the background, apparently puffing on more sinful balloons to add to euthanasia, homosexuality, divorce, pornography, abortion, and racism. Fortunately for the swashbucklers of humanism, the clerics of Castle Creation are a feckless lot. One of them is firing in the wrong direction while another is drawing a bead on the only creationist aiming at the citadel of evolution.

In the later (color) cannon version, divorce has given way to “family break-up” and homosexuality has become the more specific “homosexual behavior.” There are now two buccaneers on balloon duty and three are blasting away at creation's foundations. The tide is clearly flowing against the forces of godly superstition. What's more, although the number of occupants of Creation Castle have also increased, there is still only one who is fighting the good fight for creationism. Does Ham identify with that lone hero? The Christian ranks are rife with treachery and sloth. (I note that the Christians are now in more secular garb.)

Ken Ham mentioned missiles. Indeed. Check out the new metaphors for the battle between creation and evolution, shown in the accompanying figure. The little creationists and evolutionists are no longer to be seen, presumably having returned whence they came (which I suspect was Akbar-and-Jeff land). Creation Castle has been replaced by a conventional looking church and a weird bunker identified with Answers in Genesis. The bunker is even bigger than the church, and both are dwarfed by the huge cross (with roots!). The Scud missiles of secular humanism and evolution are roaring toward the Genesis foundations of Christianity, but the bunker's parabolic dish tracking device improbably has the power to emulate Ronald Reagan's most unlikely “Star Wars” fantasy, zapping the enemy missiles in mid-flight. (Ah, yes. Fantasy.)

In the words of Ken Ham:

[W]e do see ourselves as supplying the “troops” with ammunition. As I've often said, the books, DVDs, etc., are really “Christian Patriot missiles” to battle those who fight against God's Word.

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I don't know if Ham likes to end his presentations with a rousing chorus of Praise God, and Pass the Ammunition, but I suspect he doesn't. That hymn is a bit too overt. Ham is already on record as objecting to being portrayed as militaristic. Ham suspects this secularist agenda was at work in Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God:

Pelosi may have had an agenda to portray Christians as militaristic, for that aspect is weaved in and out of the documentary. That type of claim is increasingly becoming more public as opponents of conservative evangelical Christianity are turning more vocal. For example, this thesis is found in a just-released, anti-evangelical book entitled American Fascists. The author, Chris Hedges, a respected newspaper journalist formerly with The New York Times, believes that evangelicals (the “religious right”) are poised to take over America, fascist-style, during the next 9/11-like crisis. He particularly notes the use of military metaphors used by many evangelicals, who often apply Ephesians 6 terminology in their messages (e.g., phrases from Ephesians such as the following: “put on the whole armor of God,” “the shield of faith,” “the sword of the Spirit,” etc.). In the HBO program, Ken is seen describing AiG’s books and DVDs as “Christian patriot missiles” that can counter evolutionary teaching. It feeds the false belief held by Hedges and others that evangelicals are militaristic in a very real sense, not just spiritual.

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That certainly is a dirty trick, using Ken Ham's own words. Militaristic metaphors do not necessarily indicate that religious people will engage in violence. I mean, whoever heard of “holy war,” right? No such thing!

By the way, I find it peculiarly apt that Ham describes his defenses against the enemy as “Patriot missiles.” People who remember anything about Raytheon's Patriot missiles in the first Gulf war probably recall the flush of triumph when they were initially credited with bringing down Iraq's Scud missiles. They're much less likely to remember the aftermath, when it was discovered that the Patriots had actually failed. Ham might want to keep this in mind when he intelligently designs his next metaphor for the conflict between science and superstition.

Creative parasitism

Answers raises more questions

Answers in Genesis is still basking in the afterglow of the successful launch of its Creation Museum, attendance records having exceeded the creation ministry's original projections. (These people seem to be wrong about everything.) How best to take advantage of AiG's higher profile? Ken Ham knows what to do: As long as AiG can profit from pretending to be a scientific organization, why not embellish the charade with a “professional peer-reviewed technical journal”?

I'm sure the key word in that phrase is “peer.” Creation “scientists” tend to be kind to each other. The review process will undoubtedly be extremely gentle.

Funny thing about the new Answers Research Journal: It's Ken Ham's second rip-off of Creation Ministries International, the Australia-based organization with which Ham's Answers in Genesis used to be affiliated. A couple of years ago Ham bamboozled CMI by using its Creation magazine subscriber list to solicit sign-ups for AiG's new Answers magazine. With a breezy disregard for the commandment about not bearing false witness, Ham told Creation subscribers in the U.S. that the magazine would no longer be available (implying it was ceasing publication), and the slick new Answers magazine was being launched to replace it. Nowhere were Creation's subscribers told that CMI was continuing to publish the magazine, because that would have defeated Ham's plan to seize Creation's entire U.S. subscriber base as he detached AiG from the CMI parent organization.

You can anticipate the sequel: Yes, CMI also had a “professional peer-reviewed technical journal.” Originally called the Creation Technical Journal, CMI's “scientific” publication is now published under the name Journal of Creation. Since Ken Ham presumably no longer has access to CMI's subscriber database, his launch of the rival Answers Research Journal will perforce be a more legitimately competitive move than his sly double-cross in the case of Creation versus Answers. Perhaps he would like to be more underhanded, but the opportunity has slipped away.

Lies for Xmas

Give the miracle of creation!

The mail brought a wonderful gift idea from Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. He's worried that I might be puzzled about what to get my closest friends and family members for Christmas. Ham has the perfect solution.

Give a Creation Museum membership, and you'll be giving yourself or your loved ones a gift that will last well beyond the season.

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That's the ticket! I can give my nieces and nephews unlimited admission to the Creation Museum, one of the pre-eminent collections of cracked-brain pseudoscientific misconceptions in the known universe.

Thanks, Ken, but I think I'll pass.

Ken Ham fights the dictionary

Is God natural?

There's no point in expecting anything new from Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. He wants creationism in the schools and decries the resistance of educators and scientists. In the latest issue of AnswersUpdate (Vol. 14, Issue 9), Ham argues that creationists are being held back by an unfairly narrow definition of science.

In today's public schools, the Bible and its account of creation are excluded from almost all classrooms. In most cases this is due to the fear tactics and misinformation campaigns of mainstream scientists, publishers, and left-leaning special interest groups such as the ACLU and People for the American Way.

For example, most educators have been trained to insist that “science” can only apply to processes involving natural causes (naturalism), but not the supernatural.

As a result, many people (including some Christians) believe that to teach science you can never use the Bible or talk about God or creation in school.

But who ever made the determination that “science” can only mean “naturalism”? It's an arbitrary definition made up, by and large, by those who do not believe in God (and by those Christians who compromise on Genesis), and this arbitrary determination of science is meant to conform to naturalism.

At its root meaning, the word science is defined as “knowledge.” So why would we exclude any bit of knowledge that might touch on God?

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Ham certainly has a point: If science relates only to those things that are natural, then the supernatural is definitely left out of the picture. The awkward point, of course, is God's unsuitability as a subject for scientific inquiry. Perhaps Ham remembers that God is supposed to be omnipotent. If he can do anything, exercising arbitrary power, how is that amenable to scientific explanation? Omnipotence has so much “explanatory power” that it fails to explain anything at all. We're back to “God did it.” How, pray tell, does one dig that conclusion out of the fossil record, comparative biology, genetics, or any natural science? The God hypothesis is ostensibly rejected by the exponents of intelligent design, who take pains to distinguish themselves from garden variety creationists. However, the garden variety creationists who push miraculous explanations for natural phenomena have yet to provide a framework for methodical investigation.

Perhaps it's unfair to expect them to do this. The God explanation is the end of scientific inquiry and creationists are perfectly happy with that. It's okay to discard fossil evidence for evolution of species or genomic evidence of the interrelatedness of life because that avenue of inquiry is closed off, the dead end provided by chapter 1 of Genesis. Ham and his fellow travelers see the supernatural as a tonic for the overreaching of scientists who imperil believers' faith in the literal truth of the Bible. God prunes away the regions where human hubris has intruded and “restores” science to a worshipful celebration of the wonders of God's handiwork. Very convenient.

That is how we make sense of Ham's willingness to curtail scientific inquiry, which he sees as an anti-God endeavor in its modern incarnation. He means to restore the centrality of his version of God, so he must denounce the naturalistic basis of science. To Ham, naturalism is not an unbiased premise.

Think about it: this is not a neutral position at all. Through policies based on intimidation and misinformation, most public schools have basically thrown God and the Bible out of schools. Educators thought that meant they were throwing religion out. But they didn't. They just threw out Christianity—and the whole basis for morality. In the guise of “science” they replaced the Christian view with “naturalism”—the basis for the anti-God religion of secular humanism.

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Ah, yes. Secularism is a religion, much like not collecting stamps is a hobby. And Christianity is the “whole basis for morality.” Do you see why we cannot ignore such perniciously narrow and sectarian views? In Ham's ideal classroom, the Bible becomes a textbook for both biology and civics. The New Testament provides the universal standard for all proper behavior (presumably with a nod toward some version of the sacrosanct Ten Commandments from the Old Testament). One can imagine the thought police and heresy trials necessary to support such an oppressively sectarian system.

Those who “know” what God said and intends are ready to cram their interpretation down our throats. They plan to come for the scientists first. In a wonderful example of projection, they claim to be victims of oppression and intimidation while seeking to use those same techniques to breach the walls of the public schools. Keep your guard up.

Spanking creationists again

Another hallelujah chorus

Answers in Genesis has tidings of great joy. The creationist ministry has announced the winners of this year's essay contest. The Research Challenge Contest for 2007 was designed to serve in part as a promotional campaign for AiG's new (but already revised) creationism text, Evolution Exposed. The rules required that the teenage entrants refer to the book:

Write your research paper using at least one reference from the book Evolution Exposed and one reference from the Answers in Genesis web site. Research paper counts for 65% of your score.

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Last year's winners also relied heavily on AiG resources, so the explicit requirement in the 2007 contest was unlikely to impose an undue burden on the competitors. By that same token, however, the winning essays for this year are as much exercises in recycling old arguments as last year's. It is extremely easy to find flaws in each one, as I will demonstrate.

While it's not fair to expect teenagers to write purely original essays, all of the winning papers suffer from the suffocating effects of their reliance on recycled creationist propaganda. Time and again the writers make demonstrably untrue statements (and they probably don't know any better). In this, of course, they simply mirror their elders.

The fabulous grand prize went to Karin Hutson, whose topic was Evolution of Ethics: How the biology class undermines Morality 101. Her reward is a $50,000 scholarship to the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University:

Dr. David A. DeWitt, Director of the Center for Creation Studies at Liberty University stated “I am delighted that we were able to partner with Answers in Genesis in this truly unique contest. Through AiG’s research paper ‘challenge,’ young people are ‘challenged’ to carefully consider the evidence for creation. It’s an excellent idea. The Research Paper Challenge was a great way for us to promote the understanding of creation and attract Creator-honoring, Bible-believing students to Liberty!”

At Liberty University, all undergraduate students are required to complete a course in creation apologetics taught from a young-earth creation perspective.

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I'm guessing that Karin has a head start on that apologetics course.

Karin Hutson begins her essay by repeating the apocryphal story about Cassie Bernall saying “Yes” in reply to Eric Harris's question, “Do you believe in God?” That was just before Harris (evolutionist) murdered Bernall (Christian) at Columbine High School in 1999. Nice touch. The story isn't true, but it's too good to pass up. It doesn't diminish the senseless horror of Bernall's death to point out that it was actually Valeen Schnurr, a Columbine survivor, who engaged in the exchange with Harris. Christians with an ax to grind have joined Bernall's family in perpetuating the comforting myth of martyrdom. Thus the winning essay in the AiG research paper contest begins with a falsehood. I'm pretty sure it's an unintentional misrepresentation of the facts, but such carelessness doesn't bode well.

Does Hutson's essay improve after its shaky start? Judge for yourself:

Evolution replaces God, purpose, and morality with nature, chance, and relativism. No wonder violence and vileness wreak havoc in schools and society today!

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No doubt the 9/11 hijackers were all evolutionists, right?

The basic argument is invalid, of course. Even if belief in evolution were to lead to unhappy consequences, that would imply nothing about the validity of the concept of evolution. Yet most of the paper is a tedious recital of supposed consequences of evolution. She pauses along the way to mock Daniel Dennett as possessing “foolhardy optimism” for arguing that (in his words) “we have the mind-tools we need to design and redesign ourselves, ever searching for better solutions to the problems we create for ourselves and others.” Karin is having none of it. Good behavior depends on belief in God and dismissal of evolution.

That, of course, is why religious people make the world a better place wherever they take their beliefs seriously. I offer Northern Ireland and Iraq as two especially persuasive examples. In the former case, both sides even claimed to be motivated by Christianity. No doubt that was a comfort to all the victims.

Runner-up #1: Naturalism is just another religion

Emily Zuercher takes aim at Naturalism in Modern Society. She's working the same vein as the winner. Here's her opening sentences:

Euthanasia, Nazism, moral decline, and abortion can all be attributed to the naturalistic doctrine behind evolution. Darwin's naturalistic ideology and evolutionary hypothesis are no longer confined to historical science in the classroom, but are now implemented into society as the basis for this generation's religion and moral standards.

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Ah, yes; exactly what Darwin was going for. The old naturalist was working out a system of religion and ethics.

Wouldn't he be surprised to hear that? It is possible, of course, for people to take Darwin's ideas beyond his intentions and to try to apply them inappropriately. For example, one doubts he would have been pleased with the notion of social Darwinism. Is this the argument that Zuercher is making?

Nope. Her point is that evolution is simply a rival belief system, but one lacking the support of divine revelation (i.e., the infallible statements of the book of Genesis). As such, it's elbowed aside the doctrine of creationism:

Today, evolution is being accepted as a confirmed fact of operational science even though little testable evidence has been found. Just as testing or current observations cannot prove evolution, Biblical creation also cannot be confirmed in this manner. The doctrine of creation is credible, however, because the God of the universe was present and instrumental at the beginning of the world and recorded the events of it in His Word for man.

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Yeah. Like He said.

Since Emily forgot to blame Darwin for communism in her opening paragraph, she tosses it in later. She probably lost the first-place award to Hutson because she also selected a less compelling bogeyman. Her choice for evil evolutionist was Jeffrey Dahmer. If only she had gone with Klebold and Harris.

Runner-up #2: Day after Day

Laura Adele Price says that the days cited in Genesis 1 are 24-hour days. Her paper, Biblical Case for Literal Creation Days, rehashes the old arguments about the meanings of the Hebrew word “yom,” and takes some shots at the Hugh Ross school of “progressive creationism.” Price's paper is therefore part of an in-house battle between doctrinaire seven-day literalists and those who take a day-age stance in an attempt to take science seriously. Ross has genuine scientific credentials in addition to being a devout believer. He has labored diligently to reconcile scientific observation with God's revealed word—as he sees it—and his Reasons to Believe ministry explains how this can be accomplished by interpreting Genesis figuratively.

Price is not impressed by Ross's accommodationist argument that knowledge comes from both God's word and scientific observation. One revelation is enough for her.

[T]he disagreement regarding dual revelation comes with the progressive creationists' belief that the conclusions of secular scientists are absolute truth, just as Scripture is absolute truth.

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She thinks secular science purports to offer absolute truth? Hopeless, isn't it?

Runner-up #3: Irreducible recycling

You may recall how Michael Behe gave scientific respectability to the concept of intelligent design with his explication of irreducible complexity. If some biological construct is irreducibly complex, then how could evolution have shaped it? By definition, something that is irreducibly complex must be nonfunctional as soon as anything is subtracted from it. An intelligent designer must intervene because natural selection can operate only on biological characteristics that have functions. That's how the argument runs.

Behe gave the whip-like bacterial flagellum as his favorite example. Further research has since revealed a perfectly plausible evolutionary pathway for development of the flagellum, showing how it could have been co-opted from secretory organs and pressed into service as a propulsion device. I guess it's not irreducible anymore.

This did not, however, deter Rebecca Tappendorf from recycling Behe's outdated arguments in her essay God's Incredible Design of Irreducibly Complex Cells. She bases much of her essay on the argument from incredulity, referring to cells as “machines” and marveling that anyone could think that such machines occurred “by accident.”

Cells are incredibly complex, and naturalists explain this developing evolution of complexity through two hypotheses, the infolding theory and endosymbiosis. However, there is little support for these hypotheses and much evidence against them. Many evolutionists are recognizing the problems with these theories that attempt to explain cells' irreducible complexity. An infinitely intelligent Designer must have created these cells. That Creator and Designer is Jesus.

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It is breathtakingly cheeky for creationists to follow a criticism of evidence for evolution with baldly dogmatic statements, but one learns not to be surprised. Rebecca, of course, is merely conforming to the model she was given. And she is just starting to build up steam.

The minute flagellum accomplishes locomotion, is remarkably complex, and is an excellent example of irreducible complexity. If any part of the flagellum were missing, the whole system would be destroyed. Is it scientific to believe that this amazing miniature motor came about through a series of mutations and random chance? Is it logical to think that all the vital parts of the bacteria were formed by accident in precisely the correct order and with the much-needed information to work harmoniously together as a microscopic, self-sustaining entity?

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She blithely ignores the counterarguments. In fact, I dare say she does not even know that Behe's contentions are long since refuted. She has probably never even heard that “irreducibly complex” complex organ can be shaped by evolution. All of her citations are to creationist tracts and books. She cannot know what they do not tell her. Certainly no one has handed her any apples from the Tree of Knowledge.

Miss Tappendorf has elected to concentrate her fire on two evolutionary hypotheses related to the development of eukaryotes from prokaryotes: membrane infolding and endosymbiosis. Apparently neither explanation for eukaryotic evolution is complete. Rebecca finds the gaps fatal. It's the attitude of someone conditioned to have pat answers to everything, and it's completely foreign to the way science is actually done. Did you expect anything else?

There is no evidence that prokaryotes turned into eukaryotes through the inward folding of the plasma membrane. Molecules-to-man evolution requires the addition of material to the genetic code, most frequently through mutations. However, scientists have yet to find a mutation that adds information to the genetic code.

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Yes, that is her argument. Rebecca is parroting the old argument that evolution cannot increase the information in an organism's genetic code. There is ample evidence to the contrary, but she doesn't know about it.

Rebecca is similarly curt with endosymbiosis:

The endosymbiont hypothesis builds on the infolding hypothesis as it attempts to describe a process through which organelles might have been produced in an ancestral host cell. Through a process known as endocytosis, a host swallowed aerobic and photosynthetic bacteria but did not digest them. These engulfed bacteria gained the information to evolve into mitochondria and chloroplasts because the host cell and the ingested cells reproduced in synchronization with one another. Over the course of millions of years. the DNA of the host cell and the engulfed cells fused to provide long-lasting benefits for each cell. Evolutionists use molecular data to support this hypothesis, but there is no evidence that seems to confirm it.

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I like that. Evolutionists support the hypothesis with “molecular data” but they have “no evidence.”

Let's waste no more time on this.

Runner-up #4: He's baa-ack!

To be fair to R. Josiah Magnuson, he's never really gone away. Since making it as one of the runners-up in last year's Answers in Genesis essay contest, Josiah has been blogging away, devoting big chunks of time to serving as the intelligent design advisor to the doomed presidential campaign of Gene Chapman. It was a bit odd to see Josiah operating under the banner of ID, since he is completely unlike the cowards and trimmers who populate the ID ranks, Josiah is a completely forthright young-earth creationist. Although the Chapman campaign foundered on the rock of its candidate's own instability, Josiah continues to pen pro-creation think pieces.

His entry last year was a pugnacious poke at the many evil consequences of an evolutionary worldview. Frankly, I thought his essay was better than that year's grand prize winner. His new paper, however, is both milder and less compelling. At least the logic is as flawed as ever. Josiah is in good company with the other winners of the essay contest.

Josiah's essay is titled Survival of the Functional: How Natural Selection Kills Darwinian Evolution. Yes, he promises more than he can deliver. Josiah bases his argument on the claim that evolution cannot produce “a net gain in information.” It's basically the same as Rebecca Tappendorf's argument and suffers from the same problems.

Josiah believes that evolution would have to differentially select and preserve useless features until some critical mass of usefulness is suddenly attained:

Evolution is impossible because natural selection would have had to select in favor of less-fit organisms, possessing uselessly isolated components, in order to gradually compose the inter-dependently functional systems and organic information which may be observed today.

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Josiah imagines that evolutionists believe proto-birds hauled about useless half-wings or the dead weight of other non-functional features until the day all the pieces were in place to permit flight. He knows nothing about theories of exaptation, where the whole point is that each trait is useful at each stage, although the function of that trait may evolve along with it. Feathers are good for flight (though not strictly necessary, as bats and insects demonstrate), but they are also good for insulation. When feathers were pressed into service for flying, they continued to be useful for insulation. There was no interval in which they were hanging around without a function, just waiting for natural selection to make them useful.

Josiah cites a calculation by Dr. Werner Gitt, a creationist he says is affiliated with Germany's “Federal Institute of Science” (actually the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig). Gitt is a computer scientist who thinks he's figured out how to measure the complexity of the human body. Josiah quotes him as saying, “The total number of bits handled daily, in all information processing events occurring in the human body, is 3 × 10 to the 24th power.” That's a big number, so it's supposed to prove that God did it all. But hold on a second.

The human body has about 10 trillion cells in it. If we divide Gitt's number by 10 trillion, we find that each cell is supposedly responsible for 3 × 10¹¹ of the bits being handled. This is still a pretty big number, but it's no longer exceptional. Once you achieve that initial cell, simple multiplication gets you to the level that so amazed Dr. Gitt. I realize that Rebecca Tappendorf would object to my calling this “simple” multiplication, but we dealt with her earlier.

Coda

Answers in Genesis has handed out some prizes to inspire teenagers to regurgitate old creationist arguments. When Ecclesiastes 1:9 says that “there is nothing new under the sun,” it seems the Bible was talking about essays by creationists. Amen.

Creation math sucks

It's like Bible math

We all know about the notorious “molten sea” of 1 Kings 7:23, a basin in Solomon's temple whose description implies that pi equals 3:

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

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Much effort has been devoted to explaining away the contradiction, since it would be bad (from some perspectives, that is) if the Bible were found to contain an error. The most persuasive, in my view, is that round numbers were preferred in a time predating our possession of decimal notation and the modern predilection for mathematical precision. One wonders, though, why God didn't bother to divinely inspire his scribes with greater accuracy. I guess God was more casual in those days, too, although this is not a common view of the Old Testament deity.

Today, however, we have more evidence suggesting that religion's casual approach to the truth is one of its fundamental aspects, not just an old-time lapse. The good people at BlueGrassRoots took a trip up to the notorious Creation Museum to check it out for themselves. Their report is festooned with candid photographs and the narrative is full of wry observations. Check it out and see for yourselves. (After all, you wouldn't just take things on faith, would you?)

My favorite photo comes near the end of the intrepid journey through the museum. On the way out, the visitors encountered a cautionary poster reporting the shocking news that “only 1 in 3 teens say they will continue to participate in church life once they are living on their own.”


Did you notice anything about the poster? Someone has added “30%” to the background of the text. It looks like contemporary religionists are just as fond of excessive round-off as the authors of the Bible. Either that, or perhaps the revealed value of 1/3 is 30%. I wonder when God told them that.

I mean, they believe in creationism. Why not screwed-up math, too?

Xtian ComiX

As funny as ever!

Answers in Genesis is busy putting the finishing touches on the Fred Flintstone Hall of Fame, perhaps better known as their Creation Museum, and generating publicity for its grand opening in May. You'll recall that this is the museum that miraculously puts northern Kentucky within a day's drive of two-thirds of the U.S. population. (Of course, it's not as though numbers are AiG's strong suit.)

The latest issue of Answers Update (Vol. 14, Issue 4) devotes a lot of its space to promoting the Creation Museum and commenting on coverage in the secular media of its forthcoming opening. It also contains a new installment of CreationWise, a comic strip that proves once again that the Johnny Hart's B.C. style of moribund humor lingers on.


In the creationist universe, “millions of years” is automatically side-splittingly funny. (That's why the artist drew in “Ha!” several times, so that we would understand.) Imagine the hilarity if “billions” had been cited instead!

Speaking of millions of years, Christians must be wary of this concept. As the CreationWise strip below shows us (click on it for a larger view), the Christian who walks through the door marked “Millions of years” will be assaulted and devoured by some kind of cephalopod. (Do you think PZ Myers might be hiding behind that door?) And then the pages of Genesis are expelled from the portal. Now there's a happy ending for you! (I suspect my interpretation is not the one intended by the cartoonist.)

God is in the details?

I thought it was the Devil

Creationists fancy themselves to be scientists, but very few of them actually are. One of the rare exceptions is Jason Lisle, who holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics. It's not easy to remain a young-earth creationist in the face of our vast universe, but Lisle's biblical blinkers are working very well so far. In addition to writing the creationist astronomy book Taking Back Astronomy, Lisle has penned an article for 2007's first quarterly issue of Ken Ham's new Answers magazine.

Lisle is on the lookout for evidence supporting his creationist point of view. He claims to have found some. In mathematics!

In an article titled Fractals, Lisle says,

Numbers have existed from the beginning of creation, yet researchers have only recently discovered the hidden shapes that the Lord placed within them. Such beauty defies a secular explanation but confirms biblical creation.

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Hmm. I hope there's more to it than that. Though so far it's typical. In the absence of credible evidence, “proof by assertion” is a popular rhetorical device in creation apologetics. But let's cut Dr. Lisle some slack. Surely he was exposed to the scientific method while earning his doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Let's see what else he has to say, this time about the specific fractal known as the Mandelbrot set:

Where did this incredible organization and beauty come from? Some might say that a computer produced this organization and beauty. After all, a compuer was used to produce the graphs in the figure. But the computer did not create the fractal. It only produced the map—the representation of the fractal....

God alone can take credit for mathematical truths, such as fractals. Such transcendent truths are a reflection of God's thoughts.

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Well, that was weak. Not that I'm particularly surprised. It's all part and parcel of the “I can't really understand it, so God must be behind it” argument favored by creationists (and, one might add, intelligent design advocates, too).

Lisle's not quite done. He needs to invoke another hoary creationist device.

Evolution cannot account for fractals. These shapes have existed since creation and cannot have evolved, since numbers cannot change—the number 7 will never be anything but 7. But fractals are perfectly consistent with biblical creation.

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Shucks and darn! He's got me there! Evolution does not have an explanation for fractals. What a terrible flaw!

I feel an inspiration coming upon me. I'm sure that I can generalize Dr. Lisle's brilliant argument. For example, bricks cannot change, so they must be evidence of creation, too! On the other hand, bricks have been known to crumble, so perhaps that's evidence for evolution. I must try harder. Since numbers are an abstract notion, maybe I should seek something a little more conceptual.

Hey, how about love? That's really abstract. And love is eternal, right? What would evolution have to say about that, huh?

Well, I suspect evolutionists would say that love is an epiphenomenon related to the biological drive to reproduce, without which there would be no succeeding generations on which natural selection could operate. Yeah, those crafty evolutionists wouldn't be daunted by love. I probably went too abstract. Let's find an example that splits the difference.

I've got it! How about the length of a meter? We can apply it to physical measure, but the notion of a specific length is an abstraction. And the length of a meter cannot change. It's always 100 centimeters! Evolution has nothing to say about that, does it? Once again, evolution is defeated. Poor evolution! (I realize some may argue that length changes with respect to velocity, but that's based on Einstein's theory of relativity, which lots of creationists view askance. Don't go there!)

Now that Lisle has proved that there's evidence for creation in mathematics, what can we expect next? Some evidence from biology? (Probably not; that approach has not worked very well for creationists.) How about anthropology? (Nope: even worse.) Should we consider physical education? (Not a chance. That's very survival-of-the-fittest, isn't it?) Maybe accounting? (Actually, that may be one of Satan's infernal devices.) No, no. None of those.

I've got it! Political science.

What the other hand is doing

Mixed-up creationism

It's easy to go wrong in calculating probability, which is probably why creationists like it so much. With a few easy, simple, and incorrect assumptions, they can crank out huge improbabilities that “prove” evolution is impossible. Even Sir Fred Hoyle, competent enough in maths to know better, cobbled up a silly example about the unlikelihood of a twister assembling an aircraft while passing through a junkyard. Sure, that's not going to happen in the lifetime of the universe, but neither is it a good model for the unguided natural selection process that produces descent with modification. (See, for example, Climbing Mount Improbable for an explanation of incrementalism and fitness by Richard Dawkins.)

Hoyle is propping up an “all at once” straw-man argument when he offers this kind of criticism of the theory of evolution. It's an argument that appeals to doctrinaire creationists who are eager to find something scientific sounding with which to buttress their religiously motivated conclusions. Hoyle was not at home among the Bible-thumping creationists, but he is eagerly embraced by them as a helpful fellow traveler—one of the few genuine men of science who routinely criticized the theory of evolution. Today's anti-evolution activists are quick to follow in his footsteps.

We previously met R. Josiah Magnuson when he was winning an Answers in Genesis essay contest with a paper on the evils of natural selection (and Marxism and democracy and Naziism—they're all practically the same thing) and signing on to a quixotic presidential campaign as its official intelligent design advisor (which probably tells you all you need to know about the candidate in question). Josiah is a bright teenager with superior writing skills who has been thoroughly steeped in a creationist homeschooling environment, and he is ready to take up cudgels to defend the doctrines of his indoctrination. He already writes as well or better than the average Discovery Institute scholar , so his future is practically foreordained—unless he actually begins to think critically about the arguments he's recycling. That would disqualify him from becoming a DI scholar.

Josiah has written a series of “disproofs” of evolution with the unalloyed confidence of a Truth-possessor, but it's not particularly difficult to pick them apart. For example, consider his take on the handedness of certain organic molecules:

Proteins in cells reguire [sic] the use of solely left-handed molecules in their assembly. This means that when the first proteins were formed, they were created out of a solution of 100% left-handed amino acids.

This occurance [sic] is, to put it simply, quite impossible. Even with all our fabulous modern instruments, there is absolutely no way to make a completely pure solution of left-handed amino acids. In the cell today, there is a mechanism to keep right-handed molecules from being used. But what about the beginning? The primordial soup had no mind of its own. Clearly, vast amounts of Design are necessary.

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I added the emphasis to the last sentence of that first paragraph. It's a false conclusion, as well as the key point in Josiah's argument.

Why is he wrong? Consider: It's like saying you can't build a model out of Tinker Toys if someone mixed in some Lincoln Logs. In fact, however, only the pieces that fit together can be hooked up. You could use Tinker Toys or Lincoln Logs, but they're basically disjoint sets of building blocks—like those right-handed and left-handed amino acids.

Josiah acknowledges that naturally occurring racemic mixtures of amino acids are no barrier to the flourishing of life today because living cells pick out only the left-handed isomers for assimilation. He assumes that some elaborate mechanism had to be present from the very beginning to allow the most primitive self-replicating organisms to choose between left and right. The reality, however, is much simpler.

It was a coin-flip whether life on earth would be constructed along left-handed or right-handed lines. What we see today indicates that, by merest coincidence, the first successful replicating units were left-handed. We probably wouldn't even call them living things if we were privileged to see them today, but once the crucial device of replication was available, the path was set. At least insofar as handedness was concerned. The succeeding organisms preserved the handedness of their progenitor, absorbing left-handed molecules and ignoring the right-handed ones. It's not so much a judicious selection (by God or a Designer or Whatever) as it is a matter of what fits.

It's survival of the fittest.

Intelligently designed politics

The ID wave of the future?

When I was done with the task of chastising the brand spanking new creationists who won the Answers in Genesis essay contest, I figured that was that. Perhaps I will never learn.

Paul Lamicela, the grand prize winner, has created a website where he offers a slightly spiffed up version of his AiG essay, Antimatter and the Big Bang. No, it's not improved. While he was at it, Paul uploaded an essay on the importance of taking the opening lines of Genesis as literally as possible. It's a kiddie version of Ken Ham's argument about foundations: Biblical literalism is bedrock while an allegorical reading is shifting sand. Paul even cribs art from AiG with which to illustrate his unoriginal points. If he continues to hone his writing skills, Paul will be able to join the ranks of the adult creationists who spend all their time using cut-and-paste to recycle their old arguments.

While R. Josiah Magnuson is younger than Paul, the writer of the second runner-up essay has outstripped his rival in his career as a creationist. Josiah is officially the “Intelligent Design advisor” to a presidential candidate. That's president of the United States, not president of Josiah's sophomore class. (Josiah is homeschooled, anyway.)

Who could the presidential candidate be? Surely it must be one of the conservative candidates, so that lets out Clinton, Gore, Obama, or Edwards (even though Edwards was born in Magnuson's home state of South Carolina). Perhaps it's McCain, or Romney, or Cheney, or (giggle) Frist, or (ha!) Allen.

Nope. None of the above. If you clicked on the link, you know it's Gene Chapman! (Someone please cue up Hail to the Chief.) Chapman is so old-fashioned that the major plank in his platform is anti-communism. Yes, that's how traditional he is. He also dislikes “Demopublicans” (and, I assume, “Republicrats”), but is somewhat more kindly disposed toward the Constitution Party, whose nomination he would apparently not spurn.

Your only Non-Communist Third Party Abolitionist Alliance candidate for President of The United States, seeking the Libertarian, Constitution, Southern, Goldwater-Reagan Conservative, Independent, Reform and Boston Tea Party nominations.

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I really don't think all of those are political parties, but what the heck. Chapman is a maverick candidate.

He is concerned about the possible impact on his candidacy of another zero-visibility presidential aspirant, George Phillies. He's a candidate for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination, a prize that Chapman appears to covet for himself. Since the stakes are so small, the attack must be disproportionately large. Chapman has unleashed none other than his Intelligent Design advisor to destroy the candidacy of Phillies—by exposing him as a communist!

R. Josiah Magnuson On The ACLU

A main reason Chapman said that Phillies is seemingly a Communist because, for one, Phillies is a card-carrying member of the ACLU. The ACLU was founded by Communist Roger Baldwin, who stated: “I too take a class position. It is anti-capitlatist [sic] and pro-revolutionary…. When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatsoever.” When asked for a statement of his beliefs regarding the ACLU in the Harvard 1935 class book, Baldwin proclaimed: “Communism is the goal.” True to its purpose, the ACLU has for years attacked Christian values in these United States, and effected the removal of much of true Conservative principle and American heritage from the minds of the people.

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Why, it makes one's heart swell with pride! Little Josiah has learned the quote-mining lessons of creationism and is applying them diligently in the field of politics. You see, Roger Baldwin was the founding director of the ACLU. Roger Baldwin had leftist associations. Therefore, Phillies is a communist! We must acknowledge that this chain of reasoning is just as solid as Josiah's writings on evolution. No doubt about it.

I did mention quote-mining. There are several missing sentences in the Baldwin quote, their place taken by the discreet ellipsis. Here is a fuller quote: “I, too, take a class position. It is anti-capitalist and pro-revolutionary. I believe in non-violent methods of struggle as most effective in the long run for building up successful working class power.” Also, Baldwin was praising the Soviet Union at a time when Hitler had come to power in Germany and before Stalin's great purges occurred. The Soviet Union would end up as our ally in World War II. After the war, however, Baldwin and his cohorts at the ACLU spurned communist associations. The fuller story, however, weakens the case for considering the Libertarian candidate for president a communist, so those details must be omitted.

In addition to opposing communism, Chapman also dislikes taxes. In fact, Chapman pays no taxes because they are unconstitutional (in his eyes), comprising a form of slavery:

In conversations with Greek scholars at the highest theological levels of both Bob Jones University and the Southern Baptist Convention, along with my own studies, I found that there are three primary attributes of slavery in antiquity:

1) Taxation of Property (1st, 3rd and 4th Planks of “The Communist Manifesto”).
2) Taxation of Labor (income tax: flat or graduated/ 2nd Plank).
3) Counting People Like Cattle (to control labor and/ or property).

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Ah, yes. The “highest theological levels” at Bob Jones University. Damn, but that's impressive.

At least I understand his concern about counting people like cattle. The U.S. Census Bureau does so at its own peril! While one can readily take a census of cattle by counting their legs and dividing by four, this technique leads to chaos when applied to human beings. We are not animals! (I knew this had to link up with creationism again somehow.)

Chapman also has the credentials to make people flock to his banner:

My most prominent accomplishment to date is that I became a whistleblower in the trucking industry hours-of-service issue at the highest levels of American government in 2001.

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I fear that Chapman is one of the very few people in the world who does not look at his website as the moral equivalent of political parody. He's dead serious, but the presidential poll on his main page tells an interesting story about the visitors to his site. When asked whether they will vote for Gene Chapman, John McCain, or Hillary Clinton for president in 2008, visitors to Chapman's site choose Senator Clinton by a fair margin.

I suspect Chapman is not getting the message out to his people. Too bad for him that Josiah isn't of voting age.

Update: It appears that Chapman has folded his tent and stolen away into the night. His candidacy and his website are both defunct, so links in this post to the Chapman campaign website will not work. Go here instead. Josiah's original posts were deleted when Chapman closed down his weblog, but the youngster labors on at The Worldviews Revolution. And, yes, he's still recycling tired old creationist arguments but, after all, they're shiny-new to him.