With respect to definition number 1, you can tell everyone your views are
sound until the cows come home, but that won't carry as much weight as what
your critics will have to say. You might be more successful in arguing that
your views are *scientific* and not *theological*, however, I doubt you would
escape so easily because you seem intent upon presenting a challenge to
theologians as well as scientists.
You hardly meet the requirements of the second definition. You would have
probably been burned at the stake as a heretic had you lived during some
periods of church history (and ps, I'm not advocating
that....).<<
My middle son told me that he thought I would be burned at the stake for my
views. He might be a prophet. But I thank God that I was born too late for
that particular piece of Christian love and warmth. The point with the
un-orthodox charge is that today, we Christians do not burn people at the
stake, but we cost them their job at any christian institution, maybe cost a
person their church membership. Ironically we then complain when
organizations like Scientific American discriminates against someone like
Forest Mims. We rail at how unfair that is and then go about building stakes
for eachother. I see little difference in the way Scientific American
treated him and the way some Christians treat any brother who differs from
what the current views are today.
Several months ago, Art Chadwick took me to task for raising the
Galileo and Copernican arguments. He thought evolutionists used that example
unfairly. Looking at recent events on the reflector, I don't think
Christians today are much more open to new ideas than were the christians who
fought against the heliocentric view. The only difference is that today, we
all believe in heliocentricity.
Kevin Wirth wrote:
>>So -- Glenn? Let's hear from you about what you think of this and how YOU
would like to frame any future discussions of this issue.<<
I would like to frame them the same way I have always framed them, by
examining the scientific data. I generally try to avoid the theological
issues. But when I point out things I think have not been represented
correctly by the church, I am labelled by various names. Is it such a crime
to say "Hey, we are not quite correct in our data here?"
Kevin Wirth wrote:
>>>1) The evidence for a worldwide flood IS there, you just need to
>acknowledge that you have chosen to interpret it differently. Once
>more Glenn -- no one -- not even you -- are REQUIRED to provide
>an explanation about something which we can only imagine.If you >can support
the imagined scenarios that are required to
>for evolutionary arguments, why then is it so difficult for you
>to accept imagined notions (which are no less verifiable) re-
>garding a global flood? Why is it that you maintain our kids are
>going to have problems with one type of imagination but not the
>other? The only thing I can come up with is prejudice for one
>view over the other. It most certainly isn't because one view
>(ie, evolution) has so much more evidence going for it (see my
>comments which follow).<<
Kevin, we have already been over the issue that I used to be a YEC. I did
not start with the viewpoint I have and indeed fought against it for many
years. I finally simply had to face the fact that geology did not support a
global flood. I do not hold my views out of a sense of prejudice. My
prejudice was to hold the view that you do. The data is not there to be
re-interpreted. Have you ever been on a geology field trip led by a
university professor? . From what you say about geology, I would guess not.
If you want to see the most difficult data to incorporate into a world wide
flood, go on a field trip looking at ancient carbonates. In rocks that
look like intertidal carbonates you will see footprints, animal burrows from
microscopic size to macroscopic size. The burrows terminate at bedding planes
which are former surfaces of the ocean floor. In a basin like that of South
Texas where there are 30,000 feet of sediments, to deposit this in a one year
flood requires that on average 82 feet must be deposited in one day. Worms
deposited in the morning would be crushed by the weight of sediments by the
afternoon. They would be unable to dig their burrows. Dinosaur tracks found
on beds in south texas would have had to have been made exceptionally
rapidly. It is also difficult to see how the dinosaurs could have survived to
be able to take their walk after 15-20,000 feet of sediments had been
deposited. Unfortunately what I see is that christians with certain biases
do not even want to look at data like this with their own eyes and that is
sad. Your children will have problems if they go into geological science. I
am talking science as opposed to engineering. My two engineering sons do not
see the data I have seen and so have some trouble understanding why I say the
things I do.
Kevin wrote:
>>>Let's also not forget that the amount of imagination and brainpower that
has been directed towards explaining events from an evolutionary perspective
HAS been massive compared to the effort
>expended in an investigation of a worldwide flood. Who knows
>what a few NSF grants might help to uncover! Ah, but alas, I
>doubt they would fund anything so ridiculous. <<
We are still teaching our children what the Christians of the 17th and 18th
centuries taught about the global flood. Go and compare Henry Morris' views
of the geologic column with John Ray's and John Woodward's work from the
17th century,
"Ray's tentative explanation of the transport of fossils from the
sea on to the land during the Deluge was ingenious but hardly
satisfactory. As he himself must have realized, it could not
explain the position of fossils within strata. This was the
deficiency that the physician John Woodward (1665-1728) sought to
make good, in his Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth
(1695). . . . Without acknowledging his debt to Steno - though
one of his critics made it explicit - Woodward framed his theory
around the postulate that ll fossiliferous strata had been laid
down horizontally at the time of the Deluge. The fossils they
contained dated from the ante-diluvian period. Together with all
the materials of the Earth's surface, they had been churned up
into a kind of suspension at the time of the Deluge. . . From
this thick suspension these materials, and the fossils, had then
settled out in order of their specific gravity, to form the
observed order of strata with their characteristic fossils. The
strata had subsequently collapsed into tilted positions, but in
general the post-diluvial world was one of order
tranquility."~Martin J. S. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils, (New
York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, 1976), p. 82
During the 1600's through the early 1800's a massive effort was made by the
geological sciences to fit within the Biblical perspective. This was because
at that time, nearly everyone believed that your interpretation of the bible
was correct. They believed in a global flood, and a young earth. But they
failed and science walked away from the Biblical view because the data did
not support that interpretation. . Shoot, the fossils in any single bed are
not sorted hydrodynamically as Ray, and Morris believe. Find a local fossil
hunter and go to a rock outcrop with him and see for yourself! The fossils
of various sizes are deposited in the same bed. Above the dinosaur tracks at
the Paluxy river is a lime bed from which I got two fist sized brachiopod and
gastropod fossils as well as tiny ones about the size of seeds. All I ask
Kevin is for you to go look for your self. To hold out hope that we will get
an NSF grant for our views when we can't even describe how the fossils are
distributed in the beds is wishful thinking.
Kevin Wirth wrote:
>>Glenn, as I see it, is attempting to apply MASSIVE
>correction to the perspectives held by many in this forum -- but I don't
take it as Glenn attacking ME.<<
No but I don't call your position unorthodox. Yours isn't and neither is
mine. And if a MASSIVE correction is needed, am I to remain silent while my
fellow believers teach wrong things about science- observational data? Am I
to remain silent when a christian says that the geologic column does not
exist anywhere on earth? Am I to be silent when I see a creationist say that
continental drift could occur in 5,000 years, when I have calculated the
frictional heat generated from such an event and it would vaporize part of
the lower mantle? Am I to remain silent when creationists say that all the
animals found in the fossil record are the result of one pre-flood biosphere
when there are enough dead crinoids on the world to cover the earth to a
depth of several meters? (This leaves no place for the land animals to live).
When I point these things out, I am called bad names.
Kevin quotes several scientists which basically say what this one said:
>>>*Through use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-
>founded extrapolations, a pseudoscience has been created. It
>is taking root at the very heart of biology and is leading astray
>many biochemists and biologists, who sincerely believe that
>the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been demonstrated,
>which is not the case.* (P. Grasse, The Evolution of Living
>Organisms, 6 (trans. 1977).<<
To which Kevin comments
>>>Indeed.
>
>Explanations for the evolutionary development of hair in mammals,
>feathers in birds, ectoskeletons, compound eyes, segmentation of
>arthropods and vertebrates, and many many scores of other
>features in life forms have yet to be sufficiently and compelling put
>forth. <<
Knowledge of the mechanism is lacking in many areas of science that everyone
agrees occur. Scott Gilbert writes:
"Despite the enormous amount of research that has been performed on amphibian
embryos, we still do not know the basic mechanisms of primary embryonic
induction. One reason for this confusion may be that different groups of
amphibians could use different means for arriving at the same outcome."
Developmental Biology, (Sunderland: Sinauer Assoc. 1991, p. 305
By the logic above, if we don't know the mechanism, then I guess that
amphibians really don't go through embryogenesis. My point is that lack of
knowledge of a mechanism is not ipso facto disproof of the event.
Kevin wrote:
>>>There is an emotional commitment among scientists which, in
>my view, disqualifies them to render the final word in what they
>bring to the table. Too many of them see (as all humans do)
>what they want to see. As Phil said in his book Darwin on Trial,
>*Descriptions of fossils from people who yearn to cradle their
>ancestors in their hands ought to be scrutinized as carefully as
>a letter of recommendation from a job applicant's mother* (p. 81)
>and *only an audit performed by persons not committed in
>advance to the hypothesis under investigation can tell us whether
>the evidence has any value as confirmation* (p. 83)<<
This sounds like what Jimmy Carter did in the late 70's with the energy
department. If you knew anything about energy, i.e., had ever worked in the
oil industry, he considered you unfit to work in the energy department. The
only ones he would hire were those who knew nothing about energy. As a
result, we got a mess. How can those who are unknowledgeable in a given
scientific field know enough to judge the data? I don't know what your
company produces as a product, but would you think it a fine idea to let me
judge what and how you do your work? Or should I know too much, how about my
16-year-old. I am sure he has not the foggiest idea what you do for a
living.
Kevin wrote:
>> So please, spare us from your pronouncements
>that those of us who don't adopt your perspective are warping
>our kids. For many of us, it's clearly the other way around.<<
That is fine. A person has every right to whatever opinion they want. My
suggestion as a friend is try to steer them away from geology.
Kevin wrote:
>>>3) The activities of fossil man. Well -- looks like I need to do some
>more homework here, but I'll throw this one out to the group. Russel
>Wallace, one of the founding fathers of evolution, stated that *Natural
>selection could only have endowed savage man with a brain a few degrees
>superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one very little
>inferior to that of a philosopher" (Natural Selection and Tropical Nature,
>London: MacMillan, 1895, pg. 202).
Considering that the data Wallace had at his disposal compared to what has
been found today, I would think that a 100 year old opinion by Wallace might
be considered a little out of date to support an apologetical position.