Real Science Friday: 2011's List of Not So Old Things Pt. 2

[Bob Enyart]

My list was... to show, contrary to popular YEC AND atheist perception that either
you accept evolution and are an atheist
OR you're a YEC and believe God
[for] there are plenty of scientists that are both believers and evolution/old earthers. I would like you to acknowledge that the third way exists.

Acknowledged. But A_O, what did that have to do with your disagreement?

I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to since the Cambrian explosion is multicellular life and microbiology normally covers unicellular organisms..

Sorry for being unclear A_O. For example, with the journal Microbiology dedicated to cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, developmental biology, physiology, evolution, etc. I've been under the assumption that the term microbiology is gradually widening in popular usage. No? Is that why you wrote, "normally?"

To clarify my point, what Walcott and his contemporaries saw as an explosion of phenotypes, molecular biology now tells us that there would have been a BIG-BANG genetic explosion in scope to bring about all that morphological change.

And now, reportedly, sponges are genetically 70% the same as humans?

I read your objection to this A_O, but I'll let this statement sit and simmer some more. My 1990s debate with anti-creationist leader Dr. Eugenie Scott included her claim that scientists knew everything they would ever need to know about how genetics work in order to know that the vast majority of our DNA was junk.



A_O, would you have agreed with Eugenie back then and mocked my rejection of her claim?

...New Scientist... cover story admitting that DARWIN WAS WRONG: on the tree of life!

Um. I've read the article before... You know that magazines like that LOVE making headlines that sound provocative right?

Um, on Darwin being wrong about ONE of his TWO major theories? No, I don't know that at all A_O. I'd say that's a rather biased way for you to dismiss the "testimony contrary to interest" that's coming in like a tsunami against Darwin's Tree of Life claim that there is an evolutionary pathway between the world's organisms. No, New Scientist would not have done that primarily to be provocative. As they wrote, they believed they were compelled by the force of the evidence.

That means that a pure tree isn't really 100% correct. But it's pretty close to right.

Oh, is that w[hat] they said, that a pure tree is pretty close to correct? Gee, they sort of got the cover wrong then. In fact, biologists gave up on the tree years ago in favor of the bush of life, and it's really the bush that's under assault now.

The fact that we can tell the difference between rare instances of horizontal transfer and descent with modification is a problem for your side, not evolution.

A_O, you should be able to see such a conclusion as a result of the evolutionary presupposition, NOT as a result of the evidence. But you can't see that, can you?

So far I think the score is one for me and at least three for you.

Well, you do get to keep your own score, for now...

-Bob Enyart

 

[Alate_One]

This is not an argument from authority, as a typical evolutionist might claim. Rather, this list rebuts the claim you make frequently that it's uneducated people who reject evolution!

Actually, I didn't make the claim that "uneducated people reject Darwin". That's YOUR claim which is an argument from authority in disguise. I do claim that people that reject Darwin do so for one (or both) of two reasons:

1. They haven't been exposed to the evidence in detail. They simply aren't aware of or don't understand the evidence for evolution.

2. They have a religious reason for rejecting evolution. This manifests itself either as a simple rejection or an inability to look at any presented evidence objectively.

A_O, MOST? Let's see, of the seven fathers of the physical sciences listed after Darwin, three were from the field of physics, and four from the life sciences. Darwin himself was a naturalist, and I don't know that in an objective comparison that it would be determined that he knew more about biology that the fathers of the branches of life sciences in my list.

Pasteur is probably the only one on your list that is legitimate, but he was still a very early scientist, and not aware of the mountains of data we have today. Surgery is restricted to practical medical applications, and doesn't deal with evolution. Carver isn't a "father" of any life science, but he was deeply involved in applied "practical" science. And you've still not shown that Mendel or Carver actually rejected all of Darwin's ideas.

So again when we look at your list it evaporates into virtually nothing.

I'm not going to believe you just because you have these people on your list. You've already shown that you are willing to twist information to hide weaknesses in your arguments. Give us a citation.

A_O, I trust that these U.S. doctors meet your time condition, and that now you'll agree with the point that it's false to say that only uneducated people don't accept Darwinism.

It wasn't my original assertion that "uneducated" people reject evolution (that was one you started with). I gave you my assertion earlier in this post.

MDs do not generally learn about evolution or the evolutionary origins of the human body. It is a weakness in medical education in the U.S. MDs are particularly focused on function and disease. MDs are not so "generally knowledgeable" as they are often portrayed and portray themselves to be.

So no, I'm not at all impressed by a large percentage of MDs. They have slightly over the equivalent (minus the broad biological context and exposure to evolution) of a bachelor's degree in biology. I hold a PhD in the plant sciences and even I didn't get much exposure to evolution until my graduate work.

Educators in the U.S. are terrified of offending people so evolution gets swept under the rug on a regular basis. Because of this not everyone that is educated actually gets exposed to real evidence for evolution.

 

[DavisBJ]

Bob Twisting the words

Bob Twisting the words

For as I recently wrote to Denver evolutionist Dr. Fred Ebert after he said on air that he would debate me

You are misrepresenting what Ebert said. He did not say he would debate you, he said he was considering it, and thought he might accept the debate offer. He used very common terminology by saying “I think I'm going to do the debate … I think I will take the debate”. Do you see a difference between the commitment “I'm going to do the debate … I will take the debate” and the tentative “I think I'm going to do the debate … I think I will take the debate”?

 

[Bob Enyart]

PL, hoping you can enjoy a little bantering...

PL, hoping you can enjoy a little bantering...

...check[ing] your link... did you really think no one would?

Puh-lease, around here PL, every link of mine gets checked.

...yes, I saw your claim that [your list] wasn't an argument by authority...

Puh-lease, then don't go on refuting it as though it were...

Do you endorse that list... Or are you not a young earther at all?

PL, yes I agree with the scientific observations in that list, and yes I'm a young earther. A_O thinks this is a bit of a newsflash, but -- millions of Christians believe that the earth is old. While I believe they are wrong, this demographic does demonstrate that at least millions of Christians believe they have the intellectual freedom to follow the age evidence wherever it leads. On the other hand, PL, if you are like the typical atheist and Darwinist, you do not have the ability to be open-minded and follow the evidence on the age of the earth wherever it leads, because to do so you would have to be willing to dump your worldview, because your worldview cannot tolerate a young earth.

So PL, your worldview brings an intolerant bias to the interpretation of the scientific evidence. No atheist has ever survived coming to see the earth as young. (And many atheists have come to this opinion, which in turn ended their atheism, and this has happened to countless thousands of them, by the way, as can be extrapolated from the typical comments of former atheists in creation publications, forums, and discussion).

-Bob Enyart

 

[Bob Enyart]

You are misrepresenting what Ebert said. He did not say he would debate you, he said he was considering it, and thought he might accept the debate offer. He used very common terminology by saying “I think I'm going to do the debate … I think I will take the debate”. Do you see a difference between the commitment “I'm going to do the debate … I will take the debate” and the tentative “I think I'm going to do the debate … I think I will take the debate”?

OK, good point. I should have softened that... Thanks DBJ.

-Bob Enyart

 

[Alate_One]

On the other hand, PL, if you are like the typical atheist and Darwinist, you do not have the ability to be open-minded and follow the evidence on the age of the earth wherever it leads, because to do so you would have to be willing to dump your worldview, because your worldview cannot tolerate a young earth.

There you go again . . . . . Equating "Darwinist" with "atheist". Darwin himself wasn't even an atheist.

I'd like you to show that the *typical* person that accepts evolution is almost always an atheist, using actual data.

 

[DavisBJ]

The rest of the story that Enyart did not tell

The rest of the story that Enyart did not tell

… this list rebuts the claim you make frequently that it's uneducated people who reject evolution! Consider these strong creationists:

Philip Paracelsus, died 1541, Chemical Medicine
Nicolas Copernicus, 1543, Scientific Revolution
Francis Bacon, 1626, Scientific Method
Johann Kepler, 1630, Physical Astronomy
Galileo Galilei, 1642, Law of falling bodies
William Harvey, 1657, Circulatory System
Blaise Pascal, 1662, Probability and Calculators
Robert Boyle, 1691, Chemistry
Isaac Newton, 1727, Gravitation
Carolus Linnaeus, 1778, Taxonomy
George Cuvier, 1832, Anatomy/Paleontology
John Dalton, 1844, Atomic Theory
<BJD - more to this list later>

To this point, since, when these people lived, evolution was not a theory in the sense we use the term, these people are irrelevant to the question of scientists who rejected evolution. Enyart included them just to make it look like his (dishonest) list has a lot of high-profile names.

Let's see, of the seven fathers of the physical sciences listed after Darwin, three were from the field of physics, and four from the life sciences. Darwin himself was a naturalist, and I don't know that in an objective comparison that it would be determined that he knew more about biology that the fathers of the branches of life sciences in my list.
So for those who worked AFTER Darwin’s Origins, consider those who don't believe Darwin was correct on the origin of species:

- Michael Faraday, 1867, Electromagnetism
- Gregor Mendel, 1884, Genetics
- Louis Pasteur, 1885, Microbiology
- James Joule, 1889, Thermodynamics
- Lord Kelvin, 1907, Thermodynamics
- Joseph Lister, 1912, Modern Surgery
- G. W. Carver, 1943, Modern Agriculture

Enyart was wise in noting that 3 of this list were scientists who did not work in biology at all. But Enyart is silent on at least one of those 3 non-biologists who was significant in opposing Darwin – and that was Lord Kelvin.

Why doesn’t Enyart tell the full story on Kelvin – such as what scientific basis he had for thinking Darwin was wrong? Kelvin used his expertise in thermodynamics to determine how old he thought the earth was, and he concluded it was too young for evolution to be true. But, Kelvin also disagreed with the silliness of Enyart’s recent (ten-thousand year) creation as much as he disagreed with Darwin. Kelvin documented his reasons, based on thermodynamics, for concluding the earth was many millions of years old. And near the time of his death radioactivity was discovered, which extended his thermodynamic calculations about the earth’s age to billions of years – just like evolution needed. (These are details Enyart will not volunteer).

Enyart portrays Darwin as just a naturalist, and thus not likely to be any more credible than the 4 non-physics scientists when it comes to evolution. Enyart ignores the fact that Darwin devoted most of his life specifically to examining the evidence and principles that led to evolution.

If Enyart can provide it I would be interested in documentation showing specific studies that either Pasteur or Lister or Carver did that dealt with whether or not evolution was correct. Without that, they are just more names who carry no special qualifications to judge evolution.

Mendel, however, did turn out to be a significant player in the theory of evolution. Enyart himself linked to a site that discussed Mendel’s solution for a problem that vexed Darwin – that of blending. If Darwin had known the details of Mendel’s work, he would have given him a big bear hug for solving the blending problem. Take Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, add in the corrections Mendel provided, and you have come a long way towards the modern Theory of Evolution. Historians of science are split on whether Mendel knew of, or would have approved of, Darwin’s Theory in detail. Of interest is this offering from Mendel, a decade before Darwin went public:

As soon as the earth in the course of time had achieved the necessary capability for the formation and maintenance of organic life, plants and animals of the lowest sorts first appeared.

(In time, organic life) developed more and more abundantly; the oldest forms disappeared in part, to make space for new, more perfect ones.​

TENS OF THOUSANDS OF MEDICAL DOCTORS

The number game, ok. And tens of thousands of medical doctors accept evolution. Plus more than ten times ten thousand active PhDs in science accept evolution. (Is your middle name “Steve”?)

 

[Frayed Knot]

Now, here's the point that perhaps I didn't clarify sufficiently: As soon as the existence today of original biological tissue from dinosaurs (like now even from that 150-million year old archaeopteryx containing original biological matter) is acknowledged, THEN "without question" the entire evolution community will just flip a switch and believe that biological matter can survive for geologic eons without decaying.

So do scientists now absolutely deny that biological matter can survive for millions of years? Or do they just say that it would be surprising?

And if the matter is definitely confirmed as stuff from the original animals (as opposed to more recent bacterial films or whatever), then what do you expect scientists to say? They'd say "Yes, it's surprising, but as a matter of fact, biological material can, in certain conditions, survive relatively intact for millions and millions of years, because we have the evidence right here. Whaddayaknow."

 

[DavisBJ]

Thanks for the compliments DBJ. From evolutionists, I've got to take them any way I can get them (except from Hanaam as quoted by PZ Myers).

I suspect your need for compliments is an immense part of your incentive in a lot of what you do.

DavisBJ, I was quoting that to disprove AO's claim that Mendel knew nothing of Darwin, but for him to disagree with Darwin, he had to know something of him. And I'm thankful that AO has admitted, "Well, my mistake on Mendel not being aware of Darwin." Thank you AO. The fact that Mendel also disagreed with Darwin on evolution was something that you could read into that excerpt, but it certainly was in know way required.

Let’s read what you quoted the way any casual reader would. You said: “Mendel read Darwin with deep interest, but he disagreed...".

Disagreed with what? How Darwin parted his hair? The color of his shoes? His preference for blondes? Or might it be the single thing that Darwin’s name is instantly identified with – his Theory of Evolution?

The excerpt was to correct AO, and even if you read more into it than was there (in the link that I provided), what you read into it was true, and not false.

It’s not what I or AO or anyone else read into it that you should be paying attention to. It’s the message that you conveyed by quoting only enough to leave a false impression that you are refusing to own up to.

Davis, you're the one who read into the quote, not Knight.

It is patently obvious that Knight either did not bother to vet your quote, or didn’t care that it was dishonest in the impression it left.

That's called raising a straw man. You make an argument that your opponent didn't make, and you get all self-righteous in defeating it (Ok, ok, so that's my definition of a straw man fallacy. )

You offer just that part of a quote that makes it sound like Mendel disagreed with Darwin’s (shoes, hair style, or theory?), and that makes me guilty of constructing a straw man?

 

[Alate_One]

Acknowledged. But A_O, what did that have to do with your disagreement?

I'm simply tired of the "either or" version of creation and evolution. My point was, just to point that out.

Sorry for being unclear A_O. For example, with the journal Microbiology dedicated to cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, developmental biology, physiology, evolution, etc. I've been under the assumption that the term microbiology is gradually widening in popular usage. No? Is that why you wrote, "normally?"

All of those things in the journal microbiology are of *microbes*. Of course because of the unity of the tree of life what works in microbes is usually pretty close to what works is us.

It just seemed odd to bring up microbiology in the context of the Cambrian explosion, I was hoping you could fill in the details of what you were getting at.

To clarify my point, what Walcott and his contemporaries saw as an explosion of phenotypes, molecular biology now tells us that there would have been a BIG-BANG genetic explosion in scope to bring about all that morphological change.

Not necessarily, since we have found that very simple organisms share a lot of the same genes as complex ones. For the most part, in eukaryotic organisms, complexity is about how and when genes are used, not numbers of them.

I read your objection to this A_O, but I'll let this statement sit and simmer some more.

I note you chose to chop out my reply to you and repeat your assertion as fact. It always saddens me to see Christian YECers such as yourself use dishonesty as a tactic.

It's not simply an objection, what you said is misleading at best.

In any case 70% of the same genes is very different than saying 70% of the same DNA. You make it clear you understand the difference the very next part of your post, so I can only assume you obfuscated this point on purpose. Here's a slightly more detailed news report on the sponge genome

Here's a relavent quote.

Based on their analyses of sponge genome sequence and previously generated EST data, the team estimates that the sea sponge genome contains as many as 30,000 genes. They subsequently found homologues for 18,693 of these genes in other animal species.

"Other animal species" includes humans obviously. Humans have about 25,000 genes, take 18,693 and divide it by 25,000, multiply by 100 and you get 74%.

My 1990s debate with anti-creationist leader Dr. Eugenie Scott included her claim that scientists knew everything they would ever need to know about how genetics work in order to know that the vast majority of our DNA was junk.

While we still don't know everything about DNA we do still know that there is such a thing as "junk DNA". Some organisms appear to have more than others. When you have some single celled organisms that have 30,000 times more DNA than other very similar species, you have to recognize that not all of it is going to be essential, function-wise. Plenty of organisms have far more DNA than humans as well. Do you think they really *need* all of that DNA? (Especially if you believe humans are the most complex organism) Though we have learned a lot more about the function of regulatory DNA, I find it hard to believe a scientist would say we know "everything we need to know about DNA".

A_O, would you have agreed with Eugenie back then and mocked my rejection of her claim?

Assuming she actually did make such a claim, which I doubt based on your past "imprecise" quotes, it would be a silly claim. Fun how everyone gets to *buy* said debate to find out if you're exaggerating or not.

However if you said there is "no such thing as junk DNA" you'd have been wrong then and you'd still be wrong now.

Um, on Darwin being wrong about ONE of his TWO major theories? No, I don't know that at all A_O. I'd say that's a rather biased way for you to dismiss the "testimony contrary to evidence" that's coming in like a tsunami against Darwin's Tree of Life claim that there is a genetic evolutionary pathway between the world's organisms.

Data "coming in like a tsunami" against the tree of life? No, sorry not even close. All I see are papers coming out detailing the branch tips of the tree.

Here's a video from Yale.

Discovering the Great Tree of Life

Mammal Tree of Life

No, New Scientist would not have done that to be provocative. As they wrote, they believed they were compelled by the force of the evidence.

:rotfl: I know you know that magazines and media figures like to sensationalize stories to draw people in. You did that with your "like a tsunami" comment. Don't pretend you don't recognize it when you see it.

New Scientist isn't a peer reviewed journal. And the text of the story is all about horizontal gene transfer, not overturning the entire concept of the tree. It simply means the tree has a lot of horizontal grafts and is a bit more bushlike. No big deal. There is no major scientific threat to the theory of evolution, period. Sorry to burst your bubble but you're living in a dream world if you think this is so.

There's at least one honest YEC out there, Todd C. Wood. He said this in his blog two years ago:

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.

A_O, you should be able to see such a conclusion as a result of the evolutionary presupposition, NOT as a result of the evidence. But you can't see that, can you?

Have you looked at DNA data yourself? If you haven't, I can give you some to look at. We can see what conclusion you come to.

Well, you do get to keep your own score, for now...

Lets see, so you backed down from zero of your positions even when shown to be wrong.

 

[Pragmatic_Liberal]

Puh-lease, around here PL, every link of mine gets checked.

Then answer the rest of my question, please. I'll requote it for you:

If that's true, why did you feel the need to hack a sentence in half to make it appear that Mendel disagreed with Darwin's entirely, instead of just one aspect of his theory, to make your case? That's pretty extreme as decontextualization goes, and very troubling to see in a public figure. Obviously Knight didn't bother to check your link, but did you really think no one would?

To rephrase, why would you rely on such a transparently incorrect citation of your claim? Why not lead with your strongest evidence? Surely you DO have stronger evidence, given your certitude about Mendel's views, and the contempt you express below for people with an 'intolerant bias' for any worldview but their own?

Puh-lease, then don't go on refuting it as though it were...

It very clearly IS argument by authority, which was the point - your denial was transparent. Hence the remarks I made here about lawyers and students of logic having good reason to call it such. You really love hacking apart people's sentences, don't you? Again, this is sort of a curious predilection for someone who accuses those who disagree with him of an inability to countance evidence that constrast with their worldviews.

You claim that you're only invoking those authorities to refute the claim that only ignorant people believe in YEC, but the entire list there would necessarily be ignorant of the modern theory of evolution, since it has advanced massively since even the most recent name on that list (and even just in the last few decades). Where is your list of today's scientists, ones who have seen all the evidence? Even had you provided a list relevant to the claim you say you were trying to refute, no one here has advanced that claim, which itself is a sort of backwards argument by authority (instead of 'smart person thinks X so you should too', it's 'dumb person thinks X so it must be wrong'). Let's worry less about what other people think and examine the evidence.

PL, yes I agree with the scientific observations in that list, and yes I'm a young earther.

What I was asking was a bit broader. I wanted to know if you endorsed it for the purposes which he was posting it - as evidence for young earth creationism and the 'gullibility' of its opponents. I asked because, as you'll see if you go back to my original post, which, much like the other sections of it you quoted, had more to it, it is brimming over with logical fallacies, assuming it is being used for evidence of YEC. I'm not asking to make your position look bad, but because I honestly don't understand the preference for selective acceptance of scientific discovery to attempt to refute the conclusions that experts in their fields draw from those discoveries, as opposed to the far more consistent, if somewhat solipsistic, contention that, for anything that appears to indicate the earth is more than 6k years old, God put it there to test faith. It leaves you in the awkward position of having to hack apart quotes as you did above, and to pick and choose very selectively from scientific discoveries. Worse, it leaves you having to accuse your opponents of severe bias, while actively practicing such bias yourself.

A_O thinks this is a bit of a newsflash, but -- millions of Christians believe that the earth is old.

Why would that be a newflash to AO? As far as I can tell he is one of them.

While I believe they are wrong, this demographic does demonstrate that at least millions of Christians believe they have the intellectual freedom to follow the age evidence wherever it leads. On the other hand, PL, if you are like the typical atheist and Darwinist, you do not have the ability to be open-minded and follow the evidence on the age of the earth wherever it leads, because to do so you would have to be willing to dump your worldview, because your worldview cannot tolerate a young earth.

So PL, your worldview brings an intolerant bias to the interpretation of the scientific evidence. No atheist has ever survived coming to see the earth as young. (And many atheists have come to this opinion, which in turn ended their atheism, and this has happened to countless thousands of them, by the way, as can be extrapolated from the typical comments of former atheists in creation publications, forums, and discussion).

So, if I believe in an old earth and I'm a Christian, it's because I've exercised 'intellectual freedom', but if I believe in an old earth and I'm an agnostic, it's because I'm close minded and biased against the Christian worldview. And you think *I'M* the one bringing the intolerant bias to the opponent's view to this discussion. :chuckle: Well, I do owe you an apology. I had assumed the logical fallacies in your argument and the OP's list were deliberate manipulations. Based on that last charge of bias, though, you are just REALLY bad at logic.

One last question, and this one I'd really like answered more than any other point I've made. Why are YECs so focused on evolution? So many fields of science indicate that a literalist interpretation of scripture is just flat-out impossible. Why is evolution in particular such an affront to your beliefs? Is it that man having evolved from animals would also contradict the bit about our having been made in God's image?

Take, for example, the field of astronomy. It tells us that the galaxy is expanding, and has been for billions of years - 13.7 or so at last estimate, I think. It is based on redshift and blueshift of light depending on whether that light's source is moving towards or away from us (also the effect that changes the apparent pitch of sound waves - think of a train coming toward you versus one moving away, or a car). If we reject this measurement, we must then reject what we know about how light waves operate, and therefore much of our particle physics. Relativity would be out the window, as well - it was first confirmed by testing the amount by which the sun's gravity bends starlight. And yet, curiously, we still have atomic bombs and nuclear plants.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Oh, and by the way, mad props for this:

Bob Enyart is an American talk radio host, author, and pastor of Denver Bible Church. He is best known for buying nearly $16,000 worth of O.J. Simpson memorabilia at an auction benefiting the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and then leading a group which set fire to the items on the steps of a Los Angeles courthouse in protest of Simpson's inclusion in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.[1][2]

PL

 

[Bob Enyart]

There you go again . . . . . Equating "Darwinist" with "atheist". Darwin himself wasn't even an atheist.

I'd like you to show that the *typical* person that accepts evolution is almost always an atheist, using actual data.

A_O, the typical Darwinist is not an atheist. I'm not sure why you would get upset with a sentence describing some similar aspect of atheists and Darwinists.

There are atheist Darwinists, and atheists, and Darwinists, and there is a common inability among these groups, as they are represented by mainstream science, without rejecting their naturalistic worldview, to follow evidence if that evidence were to lead to a young earth.

That's all A_O, you should be able to agree with that.

-Bob E.

 

[Bob Enyart]

I can admit it when I'm actually wrong on something. You, on the other hand, have a somewhat mixed record on that.

You have ignored my corrections of your science in the rest of your reply to my previous post, as well as my correction of your understanding of Mitochondrial eve in the other thread.

A_O, I've posted over there my understanding of mtEve.

Thanks for the invite.

-Bob E.

 

[Alate_One]

A_O, the typical Darwinist is not an atheist. I'm not sure why you would get upset with a sentence describing some similar aspect of atheists and Darwinists.

I'm mostly tired of the constant assertion that every darwinist must be an atheist. You simply do it by using the two words together over and over as if they were virtually synonymous.

There are atheist Darwinists, and atheists, and Darwinists, and there is a common inability among these groups, as they are represented by mainstream science, without rejecting their naturalistic worldview, to follow evidence if that evidence were to lead to a young earth.

That's all A_O, you should be able to agree with that.

Except there isn't evidence that leads to a young earth . . . . . so the assumption of bias in atheists (with regard to scientific data) is pointless.

Would YOU acknowledge that the typical fundamentalist Christian, such as yourself, cannot objectively follow the evidence that points to evolution and an old earth without rejecting their worldview which includes absolute literalism in Genesis 1 and 2?

 

[Stripe]

:mock: Atheists.

 

[Bob Enyart]

Would YOU acknowledge that the typical fundamentalist Christian, such as yourself, cannot objectively follow the evidence that points to evolution and an old earth without rejecting their worldview which includes absolute literalism in Genesis 1 and 2?

A_O, Fred Williams and I recently agreed with Ken Ham's article, Does the Gospel Depend on a Young Earth in which the founder of Answers in Genesis points out that Christians do not need to believe in a young earth in order to be saved, that is, to be true Christians.

[Stripe, Jefferson, YoungChristian, Inzl Kett, et al., Does anyone recall which RSF show that was on?]

I repeated this observation on the RSF: Human & Dino Footprints are Real program with Dr. Patton.

MILLIONS of people I consider to be true Christians believe that the earth is old.

ZERO atheists or Darwinists believe that the Earth is young.

Why? Because if the Earth were young, evidence to that effect CANNOT be followed to it's logical conclusion by an evolutionist or a Darwinist, because by then they would then no longer be either.

I saw that you constrained your comment to fundamentalism, and literalism. From my experience, the millions of old-earth Christians out there include significant percentages of those who attend evangelical churches, many of whom would describe themselves as fundamentalist and evangelical and biblical literalists.

And as to literalism, I'll address that by quoting this well-received British Darwinist author's account of our debate:

Bob is a young earth creationist because he takes the accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 completely literally. I do not, and I don't think that this is a problematic stance for a Christian. It turned out that Bob was as much an expert on biblical scholarship as he was on biology. Again, he and I drew different conclusions, but at least we were speaking the same language.

For instance, [Bob Enyart] accepted, in line with current scholarship, that the Genesis accounts might be partly polemical, intended to defend monotheism against other ancient Middle Eastern theologies. He also accepted that even if the biblical authors thought they were writing literal truth, we are entitled to discover other levels of meaning. Finally, we agreed that before the 16th century, everyone read their Bibles with the assumption that Aristotle was right about the Earth being stationary at the centre of the universe. As a result they took certain biblical passages literally (for instance Psalm 104:5, "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved") that we now read figuratively.

A_O, when I've asked evolutionists here at TOL if we could create a table with two columns, labeled...

......Potential Evidence for.......
OLD EARTH | YOUNG EARTH

...that very methodology was objected to by the Darwinists.

Isn't it true, A_O, that you would refuse to put 150-million year old biological material into the "Potential Evidence for a Young Earth" column?

True?

On the other hand, I have always admitted that there is strong "evidence" against various views I hold, including a recent creation.

A_O, it seems that your bias is so intense that you can't sense it.

So, how do you answer my question about the 150-million year old biological material? Do you object to it being put in the "possible evidence for a young earth" column?

-Bob Enyart

 

[DavisBJ]

Isn't it true, A_O, that you would refuse to put 150-million year old biological material into the "Potential Evidence for a Young Earth" column.

I am trying to fathom how “150-million year old biological material” can be even remotely construed as providing "Potential Evidence for a Young Earth".

Enyart gets almost giddy over what seems to be a mistake in science on how long biological material could remain within fossils.

 

[Dr.Watson]

A_O, it seems that your bias is so intense that you can't sense it.

*BANG*

There goes the irony meter again.

 

[Bob Enyart]

I am trying to fathom how “150-million year old biological material” can be even remotely construed as providing "Potential Evidence for a Young Earth".

DavisBJ, how hard are you trying? Can you think of any possible way? Anything even potential? Construed even remotely?

And how about 155-million year old ink not drying up? Any remote construed potential evidence there?

-Bob

p.s. Consider DBJ, if you found liquid ink in something that you didn't know what it was, would the liquid ink suggest to you that the thing was not tens of thousands or millions of years old, but likely, more recent?

 

[Nick M]

A_O, Fred Williams and I recently agreed with Ken Ham's article, Does the Gospel Depend on a Young Earth in which the founder of Answers in Genesis points out that Christians do not need to believe in a young earth in order to be saved, that is, to be true Christians.

I don't think so. Believing the earth is 6500 years old isn't the gospel. But saying the earth wasn't made in six days tells me the person doesn't really believe God and his Bible. To me it is evidence of their heart and that they don't believe God. Same with the lost that say they are Christian and say Jesus is not God.