Wednesday 22 August 2012

Giant's Causeway, touchy atheists and zero tolerance


There has been a storm in a teacup and huge misrepresentation and misunderstanding over an item in a display at the National Trust about the origin of th Giant's Causeway. Essentially, in some of its material about the geological marvel (see image above), the National Trust (NT) set out the standard explanation, plus the legend about Celtic giant Finn McCool, and in a not very prominent place mentioned that there were some people who believed the world was 6,000 years old. It goes without saying that the NT distanced, and does distance, itself from the latter view. But that wasn’t enough to avoid a hysterical denunciation from the Dawkinists for the heinous crime of ‘teaching creationism’. Huge numbers of activists were ‘bussed in’ to shout down the NT on line over its alleged blasphemy. 

Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis visited the Giant's Causeway exhibit to check the facts for himself and has blogged about the affair. Ken demonstrates just how much highly artificial and organised fuss has been made about so little. My, these atheists are touchy!!!

An article in the September edition of Christianity magazine about the secularists' 'outrage' cited Stephen Evans, campaigns manager of the National Secular Society saying ‘The NT now has a chance to restore its reputation after risking its integrity in a misguided attempt to appease creationists.’

This pompous and hysterical grandstanding is so far from the reality it richly deserves the epithet ‘not even wrong.’ The NT has not lost its reputation, it has not risked its integrity, and is has not tried to ‘appease’ creationists. These issues have not even arisen. From my reading of the facts, and by all means check the link above for details, the NT gave only a trivial mention of the creationist position, certainly not an endorsement, whereas they gave considerable prominence to the Celtic legend of Finn McCool. Did the National Secular Society complain about that? Guess. 

He continued ‘We must remain vigilant to ensure that those who seek to promote religious propaganda and misinformation in place of education do not get a foothold in the UK.’

This statement is reminiscent of the 2008 Michael Reiss affair, when a few years ago an ordained Anglican minister, a  Fellow of the Royal Society and qualified biologist, was driven out of his post for merely suggesting that if a student raised the issue of creation versus evolution they should be invited to explain why they believed that, as opposed to (presumably) merely being called an idiot and told to shut up and not ask naughty questions. Its called zero tolerance. Dawkins has previously referred to Darwin dissent as 'A contagion from America' and compared Darwin critics to child abusers and holocaust deniers. He truly is the Fred Phelps of Darwinism. By the way, Reiss was and is a convinced evlotionist who when asked if he thought Intelligent Design should be taught in schols said 'No.' That didn't save him from the witch hunt. An example had to be made.

Again, not even wrong. It is Stephen Evans and those like him whose beliefs about 'education' where origins are concerned include a totalitarian suppression of 'inappropriate' questions and different views. It is the Darwinians who substitute their religious beliefs, their unquestionable dogma, for honest enquiry.

Honestly, this reminds me of a story I heard on the radio news yesterday about a mentally handicapped Christian girl in Pakistan who was found wandering near a rubbish dump and in her bag were various odds and ends including some pages torn from a copy of the Koran. A mob wanted to stone her to death for blasphemy. She and her parents are now in protective custody. Darwin and Muhammed have this in common, you are not allowed to even look as if you are thinking about criticising them.
All creationists are asking is the right to question Darwin and the assumption of philosophical materialism (i.e. the axiomatic denial of the possibility of God). The specific issue in the Giant’s Causeway storm in a teacup concerns the age of the earth, too big an issue for me to address in the tail end of this blog beyond saying that any origins theory must appeal to unseen entities and an uncreated first cause that 'just is'. The God of the Bible certainly could fit this bill, and have created the cosmos and world mature for inhabitation. We know empirically that intelligent minds can design and create, whereas the (many) unseen entities that evolutionists must appeal to are by definition mindless.
Both sets of putative entities must be themselves, or spring from, an multipotent uncreated first cause, one with or without mind. And we know from direct experience that entities with minds CAN design and create, but there is no evidence of design without mind. It therefore requires more faith to be an atheist than a creationist. But as the Reiss affair demonstrated, there is a well organised wolf pack fully set to demonise, misrepresent and bring down anyone who dares question the dogmas of Darwinian evolutionism, on which the religion of atheism rests.

Christians, note how weak  and petty these people are and how insecure they must feel to need to resort to such trivial and spiteful bullying. They are so tetchy because they are so vulnerable. And they are vulnerable. Darwinism snaps like a smoke ring at every point where it touches real science and honest enquiry, that's why they rely on aggresive censorhip of anything that even smells as if it might have been anywhere near a Darwin dissenter.

Inform yourselves and get blogging.




18 comments:

  1. "Inform yourselves and get blogging."

    thank you. I have and I am.

    God Bless. See you there!

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  2. Yes lets teach paranoid pseudoscience instead! It obviously did the author of this blog no harm.

    Peter H

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  3. Very perceptive comment. Many thanks for sharing.

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  4. No problem Ian, it was rather on the nail, but then some nails are just too bloody obviouse to miss.

    Peter H

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  5. An interesting misrepresentation of the position, Elwin. What you have not clarified is whether you seriously believe that the Earth is just 6,000 years old and what evidence you would put forward for that hypothesis? You do not need to be an atheist to consider that the Earth is somewhat older than 6,000 years. Most Christians, for example, are happy with the concept of an old Earth.

    Bob Hughes

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  6. If you do support the theory that the world is 6,000 years old, could you please provide some evidence?

    Also, I noticed you state, "Darwinism as an explanation for life is dead. The final death blow was administered by discoveries about intracellular nanomachinery."

    I would really appreciate it if you could provide more information. For example, what particular macromolecular structures you are referring to; what the 'discoveries' were; what journal they were published in, and; is this, i.e. your view, the current paradigm in molecular biology (if not, why not?)?

    Thank you.

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    1. Thank you Anonymous

      I have refered in previous posts to several books where this information is discussed in detail by qualified sceintists

      Michael Behe-'Darwin's Black Box' and 'The edge of Evolution'

      John Sanford 'Genetic Entropy: the Mystery of the Genome'

      Stephen Meyer 'Signature in the Cell'

      These books are replete with very specific detail of the kind you request.

      Darwinian mechanisms have failed to demonstrate even a single biochemical process such as photosynthesis, intraflagellar transport, cell division, immunoglobulin production, osteogenesis, DNA check and repair, protein synthesis etc arising de novo by unguided mutations. It is all imagination.

      Kind regards

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    2. Thanks Elwin. If you don't mind, I'll just talk about the scientific method for a bit (and apologies if you're already familiar, it's difficult not to appear condescending sometimes). In order for scientists to obtain money for research they apply to research grants and bodies for funding. These panels typically receive thousands of proposals for each research call. They are inspected by a panel of experts to determine which are the most significant issues, and money is rewarded accordingly. The scientists can then carry out their research (a typical project will be three years and could involve several institutes and dozens of technicians, PhD and post-doctoral researchers), throwing themselves into all of the literature surrounding their topic. After this, data is written up and submitted to journals for publication via peer-review. The top journals, such as Nature and Science, refuse the vast, vast majority of papers they receive. The few that make it through the editorial board are subjected to intense scrutiny by a panel of experts in the area, who decide whether it should be published or not. Long story short, a lot of time, effort and money goes in to every single peer-reviewed publication. A book, on the other hand, does not have to be reviewed by a panel of experts in the area, but just by the publisher. The Christian audience is a huge audience, and the publisher wants to make money. In other words, don't rely on single-author, non-peer-reviewed publications for your information, please.

      Apologies again for digressing, I felt it was important. I'm actually a microbiologist, and while, off the top of my head, I can't argue for each point you just made, I will happily search the peer-reviewed literature for the top three which you think are 'imaginary'.

      Thank you,
      John

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    3. Thank you John

      I am very familiar with the scientific method, peer review, randomised multi centre prospective double blind controlled trials etc and I do know that anyone can write anything they like in a book. For example, Richard Dawkins can assert that there is better evidence for evolution than there is for the Nazi Race Holocaust as he did in The Greatest Show on Earth and get away with it.

      In scientific research there are confounding factors which include observer bias and prejudice. The peer review process is open to abuse, as we saw in the East Anglia University climate change affair which can be Googled. The Richard Sternberg affair demonstrated that anyone who allows an article critical of Darinism to appear in a peer review journal would be ostracised. The Michael Reiss affair whcih I mentioned and provided a link to an item on showed that there are very high levels of intolerance in the scientific community to any questioning of the accepted neo Darwinian paradigm. Michael Behe has come across this too, denied right of reply to unfair criticisms of his work.

      Peer review can mean 'the unchallengeable orthodoxy that me and my mates are agreed on'. The 'show it me in a peer review science journal' ploy becomes a simple appeal to authority.

      Bottom line is this. If Darwinian evolutionism is falsified, as I argue it is, then we have no materialistic origins story. That leaves the way wide open to God being REAL. As sinners, we don't want there to be a God who will judge us for our sins, including our sins of culable unbelief. Therefore, evolution MUST be true.

      I'll late for work if I don't stop now. Kind regards


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    4. I agree completely Elwin. I'd recommend 'Plastic Fantastic' if you haven't heard of it. It's a true story about a physicist, Hendrik Schon, who falsifies all his data and gets frequent publications in Nature and Science. It exemplifies the fact that we should be cynical of every published article we read and make our minds up for ourselves.

      As a research scientist myself, we strive to conduct our research without bias. I have no reason to want to disprove the existence of God (neither did Darwin), but we follow the evidence. Paradigms are constantly changing, but instead of Darwinism becoming extinct, it's became stronger and stronger as more evidence has arisen. Within biological sciences, not one person would doubt evolution, not because we want to be atheists, but because the evidence suggests evolution is factual. That doesn't mean it's unchallengeable at all. If someone held a seminar entitled 'evolution is a myth' I'd be first in the queue to see it, and if I agreed with the evidence, I'd be the first to admit I was wrong.

      You stated that there were discoveries that proved Darwinism is false. Are these discoveries just a paucity of information? Irreducible complexity simply means that we haven't yet uncovered any extant precursors of the macromolecular system in question. Recent evidence, lots of recent evidence, suggests ATPase as a precursor of the bacterial flaggelar motor, yet I've still heard creationists suggesting the motor is 'proof' evolution is false. In other words, what I've found is that, in light of all the evidence, creationists still hold on to their faith.

      I've yet to see any convincing evidence against evolution (and have seen lots of evidence, molecular and ecological, for it). The fact is, if someone had definitive evidence that disproved evolution, it would be the front-page article in Nature or Science tomorrow. It would be the most highly-cited piece of work since Origin of the Species, the scientist would earn a Nobel prize and could retire immediately.

      Anyway, must do some work myself!

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  7. But what if intelligence is a product of evolution?

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  8. Hi Bob Hughes

    As I think I said, the age of the earth isn't the point of the last post. It was about organised misprepresentation, bombast and zero tolerance of dissent.

    However, I will offer my views as to why it is reasonable to acept an approximate 6,000 year age of the earth if you will tell me how you believe life originated from non living chemicals without a designer.

    kind regards

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    1. Hi Elwin,

      I never said I believed life originated from non-living chemicals without a designer.

      Please answer my original question (time stamped 09:26).

      Thanks,
      John

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    2. Anonymous wrote

      >>>>I never said I believed life originated from non-living chemicals without a designer.
      <<<<<


      I know you didn't say it, I didn't accuse you of saying it. However if you are an evolutionist then I cannot see that you have any choice but to accept this, which is at least as unproven and dependent on unseen entities and violation of the observable laws of nature as a recent mature planetary creation. I wish to make this point, that's why I link the 2 issues.

      I am familiar with the tactics of Darwinians and wish to demonstrate that they rely on many assumptions which they prefer not to be challenged whikle they challenge the assumptions of others.

      So do you believe, as your assertion implies, that life was designed? If so by whom? I have repeatedly made it clear that I beleive life was designed and created by The Deity, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

      If you will clarify your statement I will consider answering your question about the age of the earth.

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    3. Sorry Elwin, it's all over the place now! I just replied up there ^^ !

      Elwin, I have no blog, I don't put my knowledge across the internet for others to read. I stumbled across your blog via a link on a facebook page and you've plastered this blog with your beliefs. I questioned you on it and you, frustratingly, answered with a question.

      Consider me a blank slate, an agnostic.

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  9. >>>>But what if intelligence is a product of evolution? <<<

    by what mechanism?

    I have repeatedly asserted on this blog that whereas there are millions of everyday empirical and historical examples of meaningful information and useful structures arising from intelligences, there are precisely zero examples of such things OBSERVED to arise from non intelligent sources. Theorise and imagine all you like, I am talking about OBSERVATIONS

    So the question you pose above is just a Darwinesque 'I have no difficulty in imagining' side stepping of the empirical evidence which shows that meaningful information only ever arises from intelligences.

    Stephen Meyer has addressed this issue in much more depth than I can in his book 'Signature in the Cell'

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  10. You have no evidence of a god. There is evidence for evolution. That's all there is to it.

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  11. A question for the Darwinists: What state of affairs would falsify evolution? And please, nothing as irrelevant as "Hmm, finding a coke can in Cambrian strata."

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feel free to comment, good manners and lucidity are appreciated.