Wednesday, December 11, 2002

Mr. Peter Duran and I may not agree with everything that Jeremy believes, but that doesn't mean we can't be respectful to one another. On the other hand, I suppose if we are all just random molecules descended from a warm, pre-biotic pond, civility is immaterial by definition.

Regarding the Ark skepticism, there are no Christian apologists I know of who claim inerrancy of Scripture for anything other than its original form. (The good news is that we are certain of more than 99 percent of that original content.)

The message of Genesis is unmistakable but to assess scientific claims from it, you must go back to the original content. Old Testament Hebrew only had about 4,000 words in it. So when it gets translated into English with its multimillion words, there is going to be some ambiguity on occasion. As a result, the Genesis text in the original language requires neither a particular age of the earth nor a global flood.

There are many Christian apologists today who believe in a billions of years old earth and a local (yet universal) flood covering the Mesopotamian region and still hold to Biblical inerrancy. So attacking the credibility of the Bible on the basis of those viewpoints is attacking a straw man. A straw man erected by well-meaning Christians, perhaps, but a straw man nonetheless.

Because the Bible is NOT specific, no particular interpretation of these two events threatens the veracity of the book or of Creationism theory.

Regarding the claim that "new creatures appear all the time in nature," I would be interested in finding out what new animal species you have discovered appearing in nature in the last, oh, say, 2,000 years. To the very best of my knowledge, Darwinists all over the world will be thrilled to hear this news because they have been searching in vain for this very thing.

Paul and Anne Ehrlich, among others, will want to update their research showing that there is no evidence of speciation in nature since the appearance of modern man.

[Duran] observes that "a scientific theory is predictive." And [he is] correct to note that Creationism, in and of itself, makes no predictions at all. This, quite simply, is because Creationism is based on supernatural activity rather than natural activity, and science has defined itself to exclude supernatural explanations.

However, if we extend the idea of Creationism to be that which explains our existence as described in the Biblical text, we can the compare the explanatory ability of that theory versus Darwinian theory, or its ideological equivalent, Naturalism.

For example, Genesis correctly describes the creation event, Naturalism would never predict an instant of creation of something from nothing. This violates the universally accepted Law of Causality upon which all science is based. In fact, for decades naturalists resisted the idea (and many still do) that the universe had a beginning because of its theological implications.

Science taught for 150 years that the universe was eternal. Genesis 1:1 says that in an instant of creation, the entire physical universe was created where nothing existed before.

Go look up a definition of the Big Bang theory and see which theory best explains the evidence. Genesis explains the origin of life, Naturalism cannot. In fact, science has shown that the improbability of life by natural processes is so outrageous that there is no scientific explanation for it.

Science says that in nature, life can only come from life. Genesis 1 agrees. A supernatural act of creation is required to explain the existence of life. Genesis explains getting complexity from simplicity. Naturalism cannot.

[Astronomer Carl] Sagan wanted one sentence from space to prove intelligent life. DNA is not just a sentence, it is in an entire language. Where did that information content come from? Science doesn't know. Genesis 1 tells us where the information came from.

Genesis explains the sudden appearance of life, Darwinism cannot. See the Cambrian explosion where every major phyla appeared all at once (in less than 5 million years) and fully formed. The Bible says that on day 5 God created many of the animals.

Darwinism would not predict stasis in fossils. The surviving Cambrian species from 500 million years ago looked exactly the same today as they did then. A blue-green algae of today is indistinguishable from a blue-green algae of a billion years ago.

Darwinism would not predict a lack of intermediate fossil types. According to Darwinism the fossil record should be overwhelmed with them. The count to date is a virtual zero.

Darwinism cannot explain sex. Why would an asexual organism become a sexual organism? Darwinism cannot explain the development of even one sexual type, how much worse then to think that two would evolve at exactly the same rate over billions of years to explain the reproductive processes of today's species.

Naturalism cannot explain the existence of a life-support planet. There are only 10 to the 22nd power stars in our universe and that is far, far, far too few to explain how all the necessary conditions for life were all fulfilled on even one planet. Yet all of these realities fit very well into and some even incredibly "predicted" by a book that was written thousands of years ago.

Basically, Darwinian theory is bankrupt. Expect to see Intelligent Design theory to be taught more and Darwin less at the college level soon, and eventually in the high schools because, as you say, "duds invalidate a theory."

People who want to avoid believing in a Supreme Being to whom they are responsible will still continue to believe in Naturalistic theology, but it will be in spite of the evidence, and not because of it.

One last thing. [Duran] seem to have this hang up with people quoting recognized authorities. Presumably [he] would protest my quoting Nicklaus on golf or Redford on acting. Unless the quotes are taken out of context, I can't understand why [he] wouldn't consider their thoughts to be of value.

Pepper Adams

Pepper.Adams@delta.com