TF - Chapter 5 - Allegory and Real True History

Chapter 5 - What Went Right, What Went Wrong

This chapter just starts out wrong.  It is so fractally wrong that I don't even know where to start.  I could spend posts on the first page alone.  I am just going to cut to the point.  Colson states that the Bible is a historical document that is completely accurate and infallible.  That about 6,000 years ago God gave two babies a gun and they shot things, so God blamed the babies.   Well not quite that but I will quote Good Omens on the wisdom of the placing the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden:

"If you think about it *sensibly*, you come up with some very funny ideas.  Like:  why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a neon finger flashing on and off saying 'THIS IS IT!'?"

My favorite line in the opening of this chapter is:

Their [Adam and Eve] story is rendered figuratively but orthodoxy teaches that these are historical events.

This sounds like something White Goodman would say:

Kate Veatch: That... is a really interesting painting.
White Goodman: Thank you. Yeah, that's me, taking the bull by the horns. It's how I handle business. It's a metaphor.
Kate Veatch: I get it.
White Goodman: But that actually happened, though.

Also, since when did orthodoxy teach this?  Orthodox meaning adhering to the Christian faith as expressed in the early Christian ecumenical creeds. If Colson wants to make claims that the early church has always taught that the Adam and Eve story was true history, he needs to provide proof of this.  He does not.  Why he doesn't is simple.  There is no proof and some proof to the contrary.

Origen of Alexandria (185-254CE):

"For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally." (De Principiis IV, 16)

 "And with regard to the creation of the light upon the first day, and of the firmament upon the second, and of the gathering together of the waters that are under the heaven into their several reservoirs on the third (the earth thus causing to sprout forth those (fruits) which are under the control of nature alone), and of the (great) lights and stars upon the fourth, and of aquatic animals upon the fifth, and of land animals and man upon the sixth, we have treated to the best of our ability in our notes upon Genesis, as well as in the foregoing pages, when we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world." (Contra Celsus 6.60)

 St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430CE):

"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation." (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408])

"With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation." (ibid, 2:9)

St. Augustine also defended the idea of a young Earth.  St. Basil of Caesarea believed in a literal reading of Genesis.  In other words, there was no overriding consensus on whether the creation accounts were literal or allegory.  Today, Christians are still arguing over whether it is allegory or literal.  The difference is there is no evidence for it being literal and quite a lot of evidence supporting evolution, the age of the earth, the age of the universe and so on, thus making a literal translation false.  So one can stick with a literal translation like Colson does here, or one can join the 19th, 20th, and 21st century, instead of living in the 5th century.

The Faith - Chapter 2 part 1

Anything I cite from the book is used under Fair Use Copyright Laws within the US.

Been busy and I haven't had a chance to write this in awhile, but I am getting back to it finally.

Chapter 2 - God Is

This chapter starts with Colson quoting Sam Harris' book Letter to a Christian Nation and the talk of Hurricane Katrina. Colson compares the lose that so many suffered, good christian people that prayed all their life like Harris said, to his son having cancer and Colson having to wait through an 11 hour surgery before he got they good news that his son would be fine and shortly after his daughter is diagnosed with minor skin cancer which is successfully removed also. So yes, losing your everything you own, your town, loved ones and friends is equivalent to Colson having to sit through an 11 hour surgery. What an arrogant prick.

Colson then gives several straw men of worldviews that oppose his own. Describing evolution as mere chance and believers in Spinoza's God as tree hugging hippies who "join environmental groups and even flock to mountain tops to experience the 'harmonic convergence' of natural forces." He also claims that people who worship Spinoza's God, he includes Einstein as an example, are strict determinists "they don't believe people make their own decisions." Yes, Einstein who showed why determinism can't possibly be correct on the quantum level.

He takes these straw men even further claiming they are the only 3 major ideas of the origin of the Universe. He lists them as a purely Materialistic Godless Universe, a Universal Mind/God is present in all things (Spinoza's God) and a Personal God. Sorry my deistic friends that believe in an impersonal God that started the universe and let it evolve on its own is right out. So already Colson has committed the logical fallacy of false dichotomy or in this case trichotomy.

The first option is "A Godless Material Universe". Colson explains it as the idea "that the material universe is the sum and substance of all that exists and that it has either always existed or it came into existence without a cause. Therefore, natural explanations suffice to answer all questions about the nature and origin of the universe and of life." Colson proceeds to do one of Ray Comfort's standard canards of everything came from nothing. He then compounds it by saying that it is mere chance that stars were formed and intelligent life came about. These are two different claims and are both straw men.

First the idea that everything came from nothing. This is because we know the universe had a beginning, the Big Bang. So what happened before the Big Bang? To some extent that is an absurd question as time did not exist before the Big Bang, but we can still call it before even if there technically was no before. So what was there? Was it nothing or was it something? The answer is yes. It was nothing and something at the same time. This is a very complicated topic and it is best left to physicists, of which I am not, so here is Lawrence Krauss. This video is an hour long but well worth the watch.



The idea that it is mere chance is also wrong, unless he thinks the laws of physics are mere chance. What created the stars was gravity. Here are two articles from space.com on the subject:

First Star in the Universe Born With the Help of Dark Matter

The First Star: Things Heated up Quickly

This is not mere chance. There are certain ways that matter and energy react with one another. It is those reactions that create the universe. When it comes to the complexity of life, it is based off of those reactions and environmental pressures (aka natural selection). Mutations are random, but selection for mutations is not. Colson continues with an argument from personal incredulity added to the straw man of evolution he created.

Option number two is "God Is an Intelligent Presence in All Things, a Universal Mind". He starts this section by continuing to beat on his straw man of the first option:

"Our universe has an intelligible character for which the material theory cannot account. It can be investigated, reasoned about, and its phenomena translated into elegant mathematical expressions, like Einstein's E=MC^2. How can the intelligible, the predictable, and the uniform emerge out of pure chance?"

Not just wrong but fractally wrong, that is it is wrong in the whole and wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution (one exception Einstein did come up with the equation E=MC^2). What this has to do with the a universal mind, absolutely nothing. Colson is just beating his dead straw man further.

The next claim is that "many of the greatest scientists have concluded that an ultimate intelligence must be present in all things, if not behind them." Besides this being the logical fallacy an appeal to authority, he doesn't list the scientists or provide any evidence for this claim or what constitutes "the greatest scientists" except for making a claim as to what Einstein believed. No other scientists are mentioned. I personally get the feeling that Colson doesn't care about backing up any of his claims but actually thinks an appeal to random unmentioned authority is a valid argument.

Colson goes on to compare Einstein's Spinoza's God to Eastern religions, whatever that means and I think Hindus would like to talk to him about their Gods especially since Hinduism is the 3rd largest religion in the world, and New Age spiritualism as all the same thing. Claiming that they are strict determinists. A claim that he yet again provides no evidence for. Yet he goes to demonize all these groups through the idea of strict determinism saying that Einstein "thought human beings were no more responsible for their own actions than a chicken laying an egg." I don't know where Colson pulled this idea out of but I have a clue. If you are really interested in learning about Einstein's religious views click here, they are varied and interesting. You will notice that Einstein spoke out against theological determinism, which is a Christian idea.

Finally, Colson presents his third theory, a personal god. His reason, again if you have visited Ray Comfort's site you will have heard this before, is look at nature, look at the trees and look at the mountains. He claims that because we can find beauty in the world then it must mean that God exists and the beauty is an expression of this love. He actually writes look at the trees, mentioning apple blossoms in particular. Colson can not think of any reason for flowers to be pretty other than God. This again shows the shallow thinking of Chuck Colson. He either does not, can not or will not look at the evolutionary biological reasons for colorful flowers. Here are a couple of articles from Science Daily and Wikipedia on the evolution of flowers and why they are colorful (1 2 3), hint it is to attract pollinators. This claim is also just one large logical fallacy, argument from personal incredulity, just because Colson can't understand the biological reasons for plants ("The scientist may look at the white clouds of apple blossoms as nothing more than an adaptive response, but if only an adaptive response were required, then why this dazzling display? And why should the ingenious cooperation of the blossoms and bees be called for?") does not mean that it can't be understood.

This is the only evidence Colson provides, beauty in nature followed by a scripture in the Bible. Does that mean anything ugly or abhorrent found in nature, like worms that can only live by mating in the eyes of certain primates (humans and baboons mainly) or parasites that can only live by atrophying the tongues of other animals and replacing it with themselves, proves that there is no God? He does not consider the question in his book, but I would guess the answer to be no. The blame of such things is laid down to a "fallen world full of sin". This makes the hypothesis of beauty reveling God completely unfalsifiable and worthless for science or the philosophy of science.

I am stopping my review of this chapter for now and will continue more later. Colson continues to build on these straw men and does some quote mining too.

tUPoC - Chapter 1 - Section 3

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

This Section Lisle calls Age Indicators. This is his why radiometric dating and light from distance stars is wrong, hint Goddidit.

"One additional point of conflict between creationists and evolutionists concerns the time scale of origins. Did life take billions of years to come about, or was it created in a short amount of time in the recent past? A number of evidences challenge the secular claim that the earth is billions of years old. Many could be listed, and in fact have been listed, on the Answers in Genesis website and in other resources.5 Here we will examine just a couple to get the flavor."

"5. www.answersingenesis.org; see Don DeYoung, Thousands not Billions (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2005)."

That is right his other resources are Answers in Genesis' web page, which was also the first resource he listed. You could say he is pointing to the book, which AiG sells. Donald DeYoung doesn't work for AiG, instead he is faculty at the Institute for Creation Research and on the board of directors for the Creation Research Society. Take that as you will.

"Many people have heard of carbon dating. However, most laymen are under the mistaken impression that carbon dating is used to show that the earth is millions or billions of years old. This is not the case. Carbon dating always gives ages much less than this, even on things that are allegedly millions or billions of years old. The reason is that the C-14 isotope is short-lived. Here’s how it works."

Well before we go into Lisle's idea of how carbon dating works, let's look at the real thing. First off, Carbon dating is never used to date anything over around 70,000 years old. It can't do it. It is works well for things in the age range of 58,000 to 62,000 years. These things must also get their carbon source from the air. Anything that receives carbon from a different source or reservoir will have an apparent age different than its actual age. This is how a shellfish that lives in a lake with limestone will test as an old age. Basically the limestone dissolves into the lake releasing the carbon with it. Then the shellfish ingests this carbon from the limestone. When tested the shellfish will give an apparent age closer to that of the limestone instead of the shellfish. Water is the main source of reservoir carbon. There are tests for this and the cause is known, plus radiocarbon dating is not the only form of dating. This should be apparent since carbon dating can't date things into the 100 thousands much less the billions.

"Most carbon is a stable variety called C-12, but a small fraction of carbon is C-14, which is unstable. Unstable means that C-14 is constantly decaying — it is continually and spontaneously changing into nitrogen. This happens slowly, one atom at a time. The rate is such that in 5,736 years, half of the C-14 will have decayed into nitrogen. After another 5,736 years, half of the remaining amount will have decayed, leaving only one-fourth of the original, and so on. So by making certain assumptions and then measuring the amount of C-14 in an ancient sample, scientists are able to make an estimate of the age."

So far he is correct, but I would like his clarification on certain assumptions. The only main assumption is that the production of C-14 in the upper atmosphere has held at a constant rate. Except that is not even held as an assumption anymore. In 1958 Hessel de Vries determined that C-14 varied up to 1% at times in the past atmosphere. Due to Hessel's work, calibration curves are used to more accurately account for the changes in C-14 over time and place. Using dendrochronology to verify tree tests, the carbon dating at its worse was off by 700 years. This would be an error percentage of around 1.4% at the worst.

"Since C-14 decays fairly rapidly (at least compared to the secular alleged age of the earth), it would decay to an undetectable amount after 100,000 years. In fact, if the entire mass of the earth were C-14, after one million years not even one atom would be left! So it may come as a shock for those who believe in an old earth to learn that C-14 has been found in allegedly very ancient substances, such as coal and diamonds — coal supposedly formed millions of years ago, in the evolutionary view. And the diamonds in which C-14 has been found are supposed to be over a billion years old in the secular view! The presence of detectable C-14 indicates that the true age of these things is only a few thousand years. Carbon dating certainly challenges the billions-of-years view."

The group that discovered C-14 in diamonds was from the Institute for Creation Research. The ICR called the group Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth or RATE for short. RATE found the C-14 and declared themselves winners without further investigation of what could possibly cause the C-14. Real scientists then took over the study as it was interesting. After investigating RATE's claims, this paper was written and peer reviewed. Also Kirk Bertsche wrote a paper on what was wrong with RATE's study. The short answer is contamination. Here is an excerpt from Bertsche:

"Diamond is difficult to combust. The RATE samples apparently required modifications to the normal procedure [1], presumably higher combustion temperatures and longer combustion times, likely increasing the sample chemistry contamination. The samples were reportedly pitted and may have been subjected to previous analyses and to unknown contamination. Nevertheless, RATE’s five deep-mine diamond samples had radiocarbon levels only slightly above background (0.01 to 0.07 pMC after background subtraction), while the seven alluvial samples ranged from 0.03 to 0.31 pMC after background subtraction.
Subsequently, the RATE team inserted diamond directly into an ion source, eliminating the sample chemistry, and measured much lower radiocarbon values, “between 0.008 and 0.022 pMC, with a mean value of 0.014 pMC,” apparently with no background subtraction [6]. This much lower value for unprocessed diamond provides strong evidence that their processed diamond samples had been contaminated, most likely by the modified sample chemistry.
Taylor and Southon have also measured unprocessed diamond, finding a similar range of 0.005 to 0.03 pMC without background subtraction. They interpret this result as their instrument background, primarily due to ion source memory. Their ion source current varied, unintentionally, over about a factor of two, perhaps due to crystal face orientation or to conductivity differences between samples. “The oldest 14C age equivalents were measured on natural diamonds which exhibited the highest current yields” [4]. This important observation provides evidence about the source of the radiocarbon.
If the radiocarbon were intrinsic to the sample, there would be no change in the radiocarbon ratio with sample current. The 14C, 13C, and 12C would change in unison. However, if the radiocarbon were coming from ion source memory or elsewhere in the accelerator, it should give a count rate independent of ion source current. Normalizing the radiocarbon count rate to the ion source current, which is predominantly 12C, would result in higher radiocarbon content for lower source currents, as observed. This data provides clear evidence that at least a significant fraction of the radiocarbon detected by Taylor and Southon in diamond measurements did not come from the diamonds themselves and thus could not be “intrinsic radiocarbon.”
The lower values for unprocessed diamond and the current-dependent behavior find no explanation in Baumgardner’s “intrinsic radiocarbon” model. But these results fit well with the Taylor and Southon evidence that instrument background (specifically ion source memory) is material-dependent, with diamond exhibiting significantly less ion source memory than graphite. The radiocarbon detected in natural, unprocessed diamond measurements seems to be nothing more than instrument background."

Back to Lisle:

"In fact, C-14 is found in virtually everything that has carbon in it, even deep down in rock layers that evolutionists believe to be hundreds of millions of years old. Yet, if those rock layers really were so old, they should not have even one atom of C-14 in them. These results are perfectly consistent with biblical creation. According to Genesis, the entire earth is not much more than several thousand years old, so it’s hardly surprising to find C-14 in just about everything. This is exactly what the creationist would expect. But carbon-14 is a serious challenge to the evolutionary system with its billions of years."

C-14 is constantly being replenished in the Earth's atmosphere, from the collision of neutrons with Nitrogen 14 atoms. The Earth's atmosphere is not the only place this can happen. Any source of neutrons like uranium can potentially create C-14. This is one of the many reasons rocks are not dated by C-14. C-14 is used to date organic remains that gain their carbon from the atmosphere.

A good article on Radiometric dating can be found on the Science in Christian Perspective page entitled "Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective". This is not a YEC article but of reasons why you don't have to accept YEC or OEC and be a Christian.

"Such evidences for youth can even be found in outer space. Comets are certainly consistent with the relative youth of the solar system but they pose a problem for the secular view. Comets are made of ice and dirt, and they orbit in elliptical paths that occasionally bring them close to the sun. When a comet passes close to the sun, solar radiation heats the comet, causing its icy material to vaporize and disperse into space. This lost material is swept back by solar radiation and solar wind; this is what forms the comet’s tail.

Since comets are constantly losing material, they cannot exist forever. It has been estimated that a typical comet can last for a maximum of about 100,000 years before completely running out of material. This is not a problem for the biblical time scale, but it certainly runs against secular thinking. If the solar system were really billions of years old, as evolutionists believe, then why do we still have comets?"

Lisle will cover this more in the next section which he calls "Rescuing Devices". He knows what the Oort Cloud is and he talks about it in the next section. This is still ignoring evidence contrary to a young Earth like distant star light. I am going to leave this for now as this will all be covered in the next section.

The Ultimate Proof of Creation - Chapter 1 - Section 2

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Section 2 is all about Irreducible Complexity.

"Another argument that is often waged against evolution concerns the incredible complexity found in living things. Darwin could not possibly have anticipated the astonishing intricacy of even the “simplest” single-celled organism. Every living cell of every organism contains a host of complex biochemical machines, each cooperating with the others to enable the survival of the entire cell. The parts of the cell are interdependent; if any one of them malfunctions, it can lead to the death of the entire cell. In multi-cellular organisms, the cells themselves are specialized, each performing a different task to contribute to the survival of the whole organism. Hearts, kidneys, and lungs all work together — without one the others could not survive."

Because no one believes that cells evolved. Instead that cells have always been the same throughout history (/sarcasm).

We can just look at one of his examples. Hearts there are several animals that have no heart, instead they use locomotion to move the blood cells around in their body. Likewise, there are animals, like some worms, that don't have a heart but have some muscles around one part of a blood vessel that squeeze the blood vessel making blood flow through the body. In other words, a precursor to a heart. We can see the evolution of the heart just in comparative anatomy of animals today. This is what Charles Darwin did with the eye in explaining how it could have evolved.

"Interdependent parts challenge the idea of particles-to-people evolution. Evolution is supposed to happen in a gradual, stepwise fashion.One by one, mutations are supposed to gradually change one kind of organism into another. So we must ask the question: which evolved first — hearts, kidneys, or lungs? Each is useless without the other two. A stepwise evolutionary process for any interdependent system would seem to be impossible at the outset."

Really, this is all you got? I just pointed out there are animals without hearts. Only a few fish have lungs, and several animals don't use blood for the dispersal of oxygen anyway. I can show examples of animals without one or two of these organs, so his statement that each is useless without the other two is just blatantly false.

"Even within a single living cell, how could the various parts have come about in a gradual fashion? Each part cannot survive without the others. Such a system is said to be “irreducibly complex” because its complexity cannot be reduced without destroying functionality. Any irreducibly complex system cannot have come about by an evolutionary process, since every piece requires all the other pieces at the same time."

What parts? Name some. Of course you won't do that will you? That would mean someone could come along and prove your statement to be false. Instead using amorphous terms you can never been pinned down on exactly what you mean and thus can never be proven wrong. Unlike what you did with the heart, lung and kidney example.

"Many machines made by human beings are also irreducibly complex. A car does not work unless all of its essential parts are functioning. Since many of the parts of a car are irreducibly complex, it would be logical to conclude that a car is not made by an evolutionary process. It is skillfully planned and made by people who have designed every part to function with all the others. Likewise, living beings have been designed by a Master Planner who has skillfully prepared every part to
function together with all the other parts."

Actually we know a car is made because, it can't reproduce on its own, we can go and see it being made in a factory and the manufacturer usually puts a stamp on it saying it was made, by whom it was made and where it was made. None of it has to do with irreducible complexity.

The other thing about the car example is that there is coworker of mine that has a Harley Davidson poster in his office. The poster is the evolution of the Harley Davidson. It starts with motorized bicycles and goes all the way to present day motorcycles. You can see the gradual changes in design that over a long time accumulated into something that looks nothing like the original. Changing these parts that Lisle is calling irreducibly complex, which are necessary now, but not in the past on some of the first bikes. So even his example is not of irreducible complexity.

That is all Lisle has on irreducible complexity and it is quite weak. His argument is basically one giant argument from personal incredulity, I don't see how it can happen so it must not have happened. This is a logical fallacy, which Lisle spends an entire chapter of this book on logical fallacies and how to identify them. I find it telling that he then also uses so many fallacies himself. It reminds of a passage of the bible:

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Matthew 7:3-5


Dr. Ken Miller's page on irreducible complexity of the Flagellum as described by William Dembski. A very good read and deconstruction of irreducible complexity.

Music Finally!

"Aren't You Lucky" - Whitest Kids You Know
"Bad Religion" - Bad Religion
"Best God in Show" - NOFX
"Blasphemy (The Victimless Crime)" - NOFX
"Creation Science 101" - Roy Zimmerman
"Do What You Want" - Bad Religion
"Filler" - Minor Threat
"Fuck Armageddon... This is Hell" - Bad Religion
"Generator" - Bad Religion
"God" - John Lennon
"God's Kingdom" - Guttermouth
"Hell" - Squirrel Nut Zippers
"Hell Yeah" - Bloodhound Gang
"Jerry Falwell's God" - Roy Zimmerman
"Up There" - Satan the Dark Prince

The Ultimate Proof of Creation - Chapter 1 - Section 1

This is a book by Dr. Jason Lisle of Answers In Genesis (AiG). Here is a short background on him posted on Amazon's page for this book.

"Dr Jason Lisle is a research scientist and speaker with Answers in Genesis Ministries. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from Ohio Wesleyan University and a master's degree and PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Dr Lisle is currently planetarium director at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, and written a number of books and journal articles, as well as the programs currently being used in the planetarium."

I was able to see his talk on this same subject while visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky run by AiG. I know PZ has covered the first chapter but I wanted to take a shot at, especially after hearing Lisle's speech. Chapter 1 of his book is available online here. I will be using part of this book in accordance with the Fair Use Copyright Laws within the United States of America.

Now into the Chapter.

It starts off claiming that creationists and evolutionists use the same evidence but come to different conclusions based on their presuppositions or worldview. This is the standard canard for AiG. They forget to mention all the facts that creationists ignore when looking at the evidence. I will get to that later when he is actually talking about the evidence. This is also a straw man argument by Lisle. Creationists do insist that the Bible trumps the facts and that you should make the facts fit what the Bible says, but this is not how science works. If it was then we would all still believe in special creation, geocentric universe, a young earth, humors, leeching to get rid of "bad blood", etc. Instead science, all science, looks at the facts and follow them to the conclusions wherever they may lead. This is basic stuff, and Lisle, having a PhD from Colorado, knows this. Which leads me to believe that he is a liar for Jesus.

"One of the most compelling, commonly used scientific arguments for creation involves the field of information science. In this technological age, we are inundated with all sorts of information every day, but few people stop to consider what information really is, and where it comes from."

Well, I have a degree in Management Information Science so this should be good. Except for the first sentence, I am in total agreement.

"Scientifically, we can define information as a coded message containing an expected action and intended purpose."

Anyone can guess where he is going with this. I want to point out that he is already affirming the consequent in his definition. By calling it coded, he can say it needs a coder, much like Ray Comfort's 'creation requires a creator' bullshit.

Wikipedia has a good article on Information. Here is just a bit of it but will become important as we go here.

"Information is a term with many meanings depending on context, but is as a rule closely related to such concepts as meaning, knowledge, instruction, communication, representation, and mental stimulus. Simply stated, information is a message received and understood. In terms of data, it can be defined as a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn. There are many other aspects of information since it is the knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction. But overall, information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it.

Information is the state of a system of interest. Message is the information materialized.

Information is a quality of a message from a sender to one or more receivers. Information is always about something (size of a parameter, occurrence of an event, value, ethics, etc)."

This is what Lisle will use, information as a message. Here is Lisle on DNA.

"DNA also contains information. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a long molecule found within living cells and resembles a twisted ladder. The rungs of the ladder form a pattern of base pair triplets that represent amino acid sequences — the building blocks of proteins. DNA contains the “instructions” to build the organism. So different organisms have different DNA patterns. DNA qualifies under the definition of information: it contains an encoded message (the base pair triplets represent amino acids) and has an expected action (the formation of proteins)and an intended purpose (life)."

At first glance this seems right, but he has changed the definition of information. In this sense information is "a type of pattern that that influences the formation or transformation of another pattern" (from Wikipedia). For this definition there is no need for a sender or receiver, in essence it is a chemical reaction or like the cogs of clock. When one moves the other has to because of the interlocking relationship. This is similar to how chemical reactions work, in which DNA is a chemical (two polymers with sugar and phosphate bonds to be specific). There is a lot of work going on in understanding DNA and I don't want to get bogged down in technicalities here, so I differ to Wikipedia (DNA) again.

"Whenever we find any sort of information, certain rules or “theorems”
apply. Here are two such theorems:

1. There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no
known sequence of events that can cause information to originate
by itself in matter.

2. When its progress along the chain of transmission events is
traced backward, every piece of information leads to a mental
source, the mind of the sender."

Lisle's wonderful source for these theorems (which I never heard either of these in college) is Werner Gitt (I wish I was making that name up). They are both from Gitt's book In the Beginning Was Information. It is a creationist book. Gitt is a yec and amazingly works for AiG, just like Lisle.

Both of these theorems are garbage. Scientists have observed the duplication or doubling of strands of DNA, followed by mutation affecting a single one of those strands changing it into something entirely different than what was there originally. This would be the adding of "information." As for actually originating "information" this would be covered under abiogenesis. In which some remarkable studies are going on. Recently a new article was published on a very likely way in which RNA (a precursor for DNA) could have formed on a very young Earth. This would be a complete natural origin for "information".

Theorem number two is just weird. Every source of information? Well I guess it again depends on what you mean by information. Where is the source of the "information" that tells an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms to bond together to form water? This is yet another straw man.

"In one sense, these theorems are hardly profound; we take for granted that when we read a book it has an author. No one reading this book would conclude that it was generated by a sequence of typos that gradually accumulated over time. Now certainly this book might be a copy of a copy of a copy, but you take it for granted that a mind is ultimately responsible for the information therein (regardless of whether you agree with the information!). The theorems of information science confirm this."

Argument from personal incredulity or argument from common sense, yet another logical fallacy. First it is a false analogy. Books do not reproduce on their own. Humans guide the process of recreating books, often at great extent. Yet they still get transmission errors. I guess in Lisle's world God is actually guiding every chemical reaction that is involved in reproduction, no wonder he has no time to answer prayers.

Lisle has also set up Gitt's theorems like they are the widely accepted in the field of Information Science, this is far from the truth. From Wikipedia on Gitt and Tom Schneider's works:

"Tom Schneider of the Molecular Information Theory Group at the National Institutes of Health, an expert on the application of evolution to biology similarly criticizes his use of unproved 'theorems', use of circular reasoning, self-contradiction, 'Gitt has gotten Shannon backwards' and that Gitt falls into a 'standard misunderstanding that information is not entropy, information is not uncertainty'"

To trot out Gitt's work like it is highly respected and contains actual theorems (theorem - a statement that can be demonstrated to be true by accepted mathematical operations and arguments) is deluded at best and dishonest at worst. Thus going back to my original opinion that Lisle is intentionally lying for Jesus.

"Likewise, these theorems tell us that life cannot have come about as the evolutionists claim. The information in DNA cannot have come about by mutations and natural selection because the laws of information science tell us that all information comes from a mind. But the information in DNA makes sense in light of biblical creation. It was by the mind of God that the initial information was placed in the DNA of the original organisms on earth. That information has been copied many times, and some of it has been lost. But the information in our DNA ultimately comes from God, not by a random chance process. The laws of information science confirm creation."

This is only true if these "theorems" are true, which Gitt nor Lisle have done anything to prove them. Thus this argument relies on a faulty premise and fails before it even starts.

Also by the definition of information as a message (information is a message received and understood), the second part of that definition requires the receiver to be able to understand the message. In other words the receiver has to have a mind also. Otherwise it would be akin to a person writing detailed messages and then throwing them into a furnace to be destroyed without anyone ever reading them. So by Lisle's definitions each cell of our or any living body must have a mind.

"Sometimes evolutionists will object to this and will point out that mutations occasionally have survival value; they “improve” the organism under certain circumstances. This is true, but it is not relevant to the argument. Mutations have
never been observed to add brand-new information, and thus they cannot be the driving mechanism of evolution. Sometimes mutations will cause a section of DNA to get duplicated, but does this really increase the information? Not at all. By analogy, a copying error in a book may cause a paragraph to get duplicated. But surely it adds no new information. After all, could you learn anything from the duplicated paragraph that you couldn’t learn from the original? Creative information cannot spontaneously increase by chance. It is always the result of intelligence. The theorems of information science tell us this, and our experiences confirm it."

Now Lisle, you are just being obtuse. Ever thought about combining these two processes?

1. We take a sentence:
The dog hates cats.

2. We duplicate it:
The dog hates cats. The dog hates cats.

3. We add a beneficial mutation to the addition:
The dog hates cats. The dog hates cars.

UH-OH! We now have new information about the dog, through the two processes you just said couldn't create new information. You might want to rethink things.

That is it for Information Science section of Chapter 1, next section the thoroughly debunked idea of Irreducible Complexity.

I also want to add, I love the pictures. Notice he pulls a Jack Chick, not as prominent as Chick does though, in that he makes the evolutionist look uglier than the Christian.

Sneaky sneaky

In a good way.

Aaron Gardner is a preacher, but for one day he donned a scarlet A and joined PZ Myers and 300 others in a museum tour. It was very eye opening for him.

http://pastoraaron.info/2009/08/11/scarlet-a-for-a-day

http://pastoraaron.info/2009/08/13/and-this-atheist-was-a-walking-christian-tract/

http://pastoraaron.info/2009/08/14/atheism-at-the-creation-museum/

Creo Zerg!

I am finally getting to my impression of the Creo Zerg (tm).

I left work on Thursday at 11am. The drive to Kentucky took 12 hours and 15 minutes plus there was a time change where I got to skip over most of the 9 o'clock hour (9 to 10 pm is the worst hour of the night anyway...). So I finally make it to the hotel around 12:30 am. I meet Froggie/E-lad/Dale at the hotel, we shared a room to cut the cost down. Dale started posting about our adventures that night at SMRT. I was very tired but stayed up a bit and talked.

The next morning, we had breakfast and made our way to the museum. At breakfast I noticed a family of Pentecostal Holiness followers. They are usually easy to spot as the women are not allowed to cut their hair and have to wear dresses at all times. When we got to the museum, I saw the same family there with a group of other similarly dressed people. The shock and horror on their face was rather funny.

Anyway, the place has been covered pretty well and I don't have much else to add, except my pictures. So here is the link to my photo album.

Creation Hamseum

I started this post a few days ago and am now just finishing it. I realized I am not going to cover much different except my pictures.

Physics - Bruce Malone Is Doing It Wrong

Creation Science Evangelism is the company started by convicted felon Kent Hovind. It is currently being run by Kent's son Eric Hovind. One of the current articles, on the web site, is "Physics Show That Six Day Creation is Possible" by Bruce Malone. In this article Bruce makes some pretty amazing claims on the Theory of Relativity. In particular, the idea of Time Dilation.

Before I continue, I want it to be known that I am copying this article under Fair Use and abiding by all the laws thereof. It is sad I have to state that but Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) has attempted to silence its critics in the past.

Exodus 20:11 makes one of the most unbelievable statements of the Bible: "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day." It is hard to imagine a clearer statement defining how long God took in creating the entire universe. However, this simple statement has presented a seemingly impossible dilemma for Christians. On one hand, modern cosmology teaches that the universe has taken billions of years to form. On the other hand, if this clear and straightforward statement of the Bible can not be trusted to mean what it says, how can we know that any statement of the Bible can be trusted to mean what it says?

Well that is not the only place in the Bible where it makes that claim. Most people reference Genesis Chapter 1 and the first few verses of Chapter 2. It also really isn't that seemingly impossible dilemma for Christians, just for those that believe in an errant Bible and special creation.

Also there is the assumption that the word ~wy or yowm means a 24 hour period. In reality it can mean day, time, or year. This is the word used in Genesis and Exodus when describing creation.

This is all just scratching the surface of what is wrong with the first creation story presented in Genesis. Things like light being created before the sun. The earth being created before the sun. Birds being created before land animals. Water being above the sky. Water not being created just God suddenly dividing it, where did it come from? None of that is covered in this article, so continuing on.

This was the dilemma which Dr. Russell Humphreys (physicist at Sandia National Laboratory) set out to solve as he studied what the Bible had to say about the formation of our universe. Most people have been taught that the universe is the result of a gigantic explosion called the "Big Bang".

Sorry, I am stopping him here. He has just created a straw man. No one who understands the Big Bang Theory claim the universe is the result of a gigantic explosion. What the real belief is that the universe experienced rapid expansion, like when you blow up a balloon. There was no explosion. As a matter of fact, with the right instruments we can still observe the expansion of the universe to this day as it is ongoing.

During this explosive expansion, all the matter of the universe supposedly expanded outward from a tiny pinpoint. All modern cosmological models start with the assumption that the universe has neither a center nor an edge. When these assumptions are plugged into Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the result is an expanding universe which is billions of years old at every location.

Again, it was not an explosion. Pinpoint is too big, it was far smaller than that. Yes, there is no center of the Universe. To go back to the balloon analogy, the universe would be more akin to the skin of the balloon. It is expanding but where does the expansion start for the skin of the balloon? For a more detailed explanation you can read the Usenet Physics FAQ by Don Koks with this particular article being written by Philip Gibbs in 1997. To claim that there is a center to the Universe is absurd and shows a complete lack of understanding in Cosmology and Physics. The edge of the Universe is similar. There is no physical edge, but gravity creates a type of edge. According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which is supposedly what this article is about, gravity curves space. It is possible that there is so much mass in the Universe that gravity curves the Universe around back onto itself. Again like the balloon analogy, find the edge of the balloon. You can't, it just goes around and around (ignoring where you blow the balloon up at). What the article is asking you to do is to find the edge of the Earth, and then claiming because you can't the Earth must be infinite in size. Again a basic misunderstanding of Cosmology and Relativity. As you can see from the University of Michigan's website Windows to the Universe this question is asked by a 9, 12 and 13 year old. One would think a physicist at Sandia National Laboratory would understand the universe a bit better.

Rather than start with these arbitrary assumptions (a universe having no center and no edge), Dr. Humphreys decided to take the most apparent meaning of the Biblical text and see what model of the universe developed. He reasoned that if the Bible was inspired by God, as it claims to be, it should not have to be twisted to be understood. It should have the same straight forward meaning for a "man on the street", a brilliant physicist, or a theologian.

Again, these are not arbitrary assumptions, these are observable facts. This is just another straw man.

So, Dr. Humphreys decides to throw out facts and starts to build an imaginary universe based on the Bible. The rest of it, I could not agree more with. If the Bible was inspired by a creator god, then it should be accurate in every detail of that creation. It is just those pesky facts keep getting in the way. Things like the Earth revolves around the Sun, the Moon is not a source of light, sunlight couldn't exist without the Sun, you know things like that.

The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center-perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out". Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center.

Okay, now we have something that is testable. This so far looks like good science. If any of these things is not true then the Bible is wrong about the Universe and about creation. Which, according to Bruce at the beginning of this article, means that we cannot trust anything the Bible says. ("...if this clear and straightforward statement of the Bible can not be trusted to mean what it says, how can we know that any statement of the Bible can be trusted to mean what it says?")

Well, as I pointed out earlier there is no center of the Universe. In fact quoting the article by Philip Gibbs that I posted earlier.

In 1929 Edwin Hubble announced that he had measured the speed of galaxies at different distances from us, and had discovered that the farther they were, the faster they were receding. This might suggest that we are at the centre of the expanding universe, but in fact if the universe is expanding uniformly according to Hubble's law, then it will appear to do so from any vantage point.

If we see a galaxy B receding from us at 10,000 km/s, an alien in galaxy B will see our galaxy A receding from it at 10,000 km/s in the opposite direction. Another galaxy C twice as far away in the same direction as B will be seen by us as receding at 20,000 km/s. The alien will see it receding at 10,000 km/s:

A B C
From A 0 km/s 10,000 km/s 20,000 km/s
From B -10,000 km/s 0 km/s 10,000 km/s


So from the point of view of the alien at B, everything is expanding away from it, whichever direction it looks in, just the same as it does for us.

The universe is expanding at a uniform rate and observation from any point will seem like that point is the center, because there is no center. Find the center of the skin on a balloon or find the center of the surface of the earth. These things are nonsensical. Point 1 is wrong and the Bible cannot be trusted because of this according to Bruce Malone.

Point 2 is partially correct. The Universe is expanding, but matter is not. That would mean that everyone and everything was expanding, this is just a weird silly statement and I don't know where it comes from. The Usenet Physics FAQ covers this idea of Expanding Atoms originally written by Michael Weiss (yes it is out of date, but the article admits that and the basic concepts are right). Analysis, part of Point 2 is incorrect and thus the Bible is untrustworthy.

Point 3 is wrong. Find the boundary of the surface of the Earth or the skin of a balloon. Obviously both are finite, yet neither have a boundary. The same goes for the Universe. Something can be finite and yet have no boundary. Why is this so hard to grasp for someone who is a physicist at Sandia National Laboratory. Point 3 is wrong and so the Bible is untrustworthy.

Well there you have it, Dr. Russell Humphreys gave us three testable ideas for the trustworthiness of the Bible and failed in 2.5 of them. So the Bible is untrustworthy. Thank you Creation Science Evangelism for pointing this out. Oh, they have more.

If these three assumptions are plugged into the currently accepted formulas of physics, and the mathematical crank is turned, we live in a universe in which clocks tick at different rates depending on your location.

What? This sentence is in English, yet I can't parse it. Okay, so they take the three assumptions, that are proven wrong, and add them to physics, which is descriptions of the real world and how it works. Then they do some sort of undefined math and voila clocks run at different times. Huh? How does this come close to making any kind of sense?

Physics is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the world and universe behave. If you take made up stuff and throw it into formulas based on real observations, you end up with made up stuff. This is like trying to take comic book heroes and use physics to explain how they do their things. In the end you still have make believe. It can be used to gain an interest in physics, as with the popular Science of the Watchmen, but what you derive from it is completely useless.

After this abysmal attempt at science, now Bruce is going to try and explain what Time Dilation is and how it matters to his argument.

Furthermore, the time dilation effect would be magnified tremendously as the universe was originally expanding. As the universe expanded, there was a point at which time was moving very rapidly at the outer edge and essentially stopped near the center. At this point in the expansion of the universe, only days were passing near the center, while billions of years were passing in the heavens. This is the inevitable conclusion based on our current knowledge of physics and starting with Biblical assumptions instead of arbitrary ones.

First that is not how Time Dilation or the Universe works. Time dilation is the phenomenon whereby an observer finds that another's clock, which is physically identical to their own, is ticking at a slower rate as measured by their own clock. This is often interpreted as time "slowing down" for the other clock, but that is only true in the context of the observer's frame of reference. Locally (i.e., from the perspective of any observer within the same frame of reference, without reference to another frame of reference), time always passes at the same rate. Time dilation is affected by speed and gravity. Since the Universe is expanding at the same constant rate at all points, there would be no time dilation due to speed.

Second, let me say this loudly as he seems not to understand, THERE IS NO CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!

Third, making up arbitrary assumptions is what Dr. Humphreys did, not what cosmologists do. Instead cosmologists look at the facts and determine what is happening according to the facts, not the other way around. Dr. Humphreys instead made assumptions and then shoehorned physics into agreeing with him.

Albert Einstein rejected the idea that the Bible could be literally true. He wrote that, "Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the convictions that many of the stories in the Bible could not be true." How ironic that the most ridiculed Biblical story (about a recent, literal, six day creation of the universe) is exactly the story which Albert Einstein’s work has shown to be entirely possible. A comprehensive explanation of Dr. Humphreys work, can be found in his book.

Well I am thankful they didn't quote mine Einstein into looking like a believer, like some other creationists. *coughRayComfortcough* It is not ironic because Bruce and Dr. Humphreys have failed miserably to show that it is "entirely possible". All they did was take make believe plug into to formulas based on the real world. Then claimed that those answers, which are still make believe, prove the original make believe is possible. Which it would be if we lived in the make believe world they started with. Never let facts get in the way of your make believe world.

Addendum: I knew I was missing something on Time Dilation and my friend Stan, from the blog Cabbagery, pointed it out. Dr. Humphreys has Time Dilation backwards. If Earth was the slower moving object and the "outer edge" (which is still meaningless) was moving faster. Then time would appear to slow down for the outer edge if your point of reference was the Earth.

Weekend fun

My dad had his surgery on Friday. Everything went great, he was actually able to go home a day early. He can already walk and get around. He has trouble getting up from a sitting or laying down position is all. He also said he has a dull ache in his hip but nothing severe.

Saturday night I went to a friend's 40th birthday party. I made an awesome pineapple habanero salsa. Tasted wonderful but had people reaching for drinks, followed by going after more salsa. The salsa itself had 12 habanero peppers in it, seeds and all.

I had to cut up the peppers by hand and didn't wear gloves while doing it. My cat came up to my hand smelled it shook her head and didn't want to have anything to do with my hand for the rest of the day a most of Sunday. Sunday, the capsaicin still on my fingers was burning as I tried to play games. Also never wear contacts on a day you cut up peppers. My eyes burned for awhile after I took the contacts out by hand. Not one of my most brilliant moves.

At the party, I got to sit down and talk with a friend mine. We have both been through divorces and just have a lot in common. We started talking about our exes and why things went wrong. He brought up the sex issue and mentioned how they were both virgins until shortly before they got married. They had sex two times before getting married and then about once a month after marriage. My ex and I well we were not virgins. We had sex several times before getting married, but after I gave her the engagement ring she suddenly did not want to have sex. Once we did get married we also only had sex about once a month. Both my friend and I had to initiate to get any action. Personally I got fed up with initiating and became celibate. My friend just found other women and cheated on his wife.

He also told me that his wife would say things like "are you done yet". How romantic and sensual. This got me to the whole Christianity makes sex evil. He is a christian and he knows I am an atheist. I pointed out that within Christianity, the idea is that sex is evil and even when one is married it is hard to break that and it suddenly be good. He actually agreed with me there. He also said he didn't think sex was supposed to be evil according to the Bible. I didn't really push the point with him.

I just thought it was an interesting conversation. There was of course more to it than this but this is the highlights. I am glad I have a good friend that I can discuss things like this with without judgment. This is how friendship should be.

Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History

I finally got all the pictures from the museum uploaded and ready to show. There is even one of me through a mirror. I really like the museum, it isn't very big but it is only 5 dollars a person for entry. So have fun going through this homemade mini tour of the museum.

Oh and never forget: