Creationist Website Praises Stephen Meyer’s Book

THE neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids) have a new post at their blog proclaiming Another Positive Review: “Signature in the Cell is absolutely fascinating.”.

That’s the new book about which we previously reported, by Discoveroid Stephen C. Meyer.

The Amazon listing for Meyer’s book is: Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. From what we’ve heard, Meyer’s key argument is that DNA is so complicated that — jeepers! — it just had to be the work of [flourish of trumpets] the Intelligent Designer.

This book is only the latest in a series of triumphs for Meyer. As we noted here, he somehow wangled a speaking gig at the once-prestigious Heritage Foundation. Before that, as we reported here, Meyer was one of three creationist “experts” who were on the 6-member panel selected by Don McLeroy to testify before the Texas Board of Education regarding standards for science education. And before that, Meyer was a central figure in the notoriously shabby peer review controversy.

The new Discoveroid blog article doesn’t say very much. It consists of a little bit of text, followed by two paragraphs quoted from a favorable review. This is what they say, including their link to the review from which they quote. We won’t copy their quote, because you can easily check out the entire review for yourself:

Over at Ligonier Ministries there is a very thoughtful review of Signature in the Cell.

We hadn’t heard of any credible scientific sources that have commented favorably on Meyer’s book, so naturally we wondered about the source of this praise that was worthy of Discoveroid attention. We followed the link to find Ligonier Ministries. Their “About” page says:

Ligonier Ministries is an international Christian education organization established in 1971 to equip Christians to articulate what they believe and why they believe it. …

They also have a Statement of Faith, which says:

We believe that the Bible, in its entirety, is divine revelation, and we submit to the authority of Holy Scripture, acknowledging it to be inerrantly inspired by God and carrying the full weight of His authority.

We’ve seen that sort of thing at other creationist websites. For example, this is from the Answers in Genesis statement of faith:

The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. It is the supreme authority in everything it teaches. Its authority is not limited to spiritual, religious or redemptive themes but includes its assertions in such fields as history and science.

As we’ve made clear in the past, we have no quarrel with what people believe. Everyone should have the freedom to enjoy his own beliefs. Religion is a personal matter with which we have no desire to interfere. We, of course, enjoy the same freedom, and we won’t tolerate anyone’s attempt to abridge our rights.

Looking into the nature of the reviewer helps us understand that for them to comment favorably, Meyer’s book must be consistent with their creationist beliefs. That’s not surprising, but it does indicate — at least to us — that Meyer’s book may not be the work of science that he and the Discoveroids would have us believe. It also indicates that the Discoveroids are probably desperate for any favorable publicity about Meyer’s book.

Oh, we should mention that the Discoveroid blog doesn’t quote this part of the review:

From a Christian perspective, if Meyer’s formulation of the intelligent design argument is true, then what he is observing is an instance in which the primary cause (God), operating apart from any secondary cause (natural laws, etc.), left visible evidence in the material world — specifically in the genetic code found in DNA.

They really like Meyer and intelligent design. As they should.

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Olivia Judson: What’s In Your Guts?

Dr. Olivia Judson

IT is once again our delight, dear reader, to post about a column by the splendidly-evolved Olivia Judson — an evolutionary biologist and a research fellow in biology at Imperial College London. This article, part of Dr. Judson’s series in the New York Times, is titled: Microbes ‘R’ Us. Here are some excerpts, with bold added by us:

The typical human is home to a vast array of microbes. If you were to count them, you’d find that microbial cells outnumber your own by a factor of 10. On a cell-by-cell basis, then, you are only 10 percent human. For the rest, you are microbial. (Why don’t you see this when you look in the mirror? Because most of the microbes are bacteria, and bacterial cells are generally much smaller than animal cells. They may make up 90 percent of the cells, but they’re not 90 percent of your bulk.)

Yes, but in Olivia’s case, the ten percent of her that’s human seems to be just fine. Let’s read on:

Even on your skin, the diversity of bacteria is prodigious. If you were to have your hands sampled, you’d probably find that each fingertip has a distinct set of residents; your palms probably also differ markedly from each other, each home to more than 150 species, but with fewer than 20 percent of the species the same. And if you’re a woman, odds are you’ll have more species than the man next to you. Why should this be? So far, no one knows.

Your Curmudgeon hopes that, if put to the test, his bacteria will be wondrously compatible with Olivia’s. We continue:

But it’s the bacteria in the digestive tract, especially the gut, that intrigue me most. Many of these appear to be true symbionts: they have evolved to live in guts and (as far as we know) are not found elsewhere. In providing their habitat — a constant temperature, some protection from hostile lifeforms and regular influxes of food — we are as essential to them as they are to us.

Isn’t biology fun? Here’s more:

And they definitely are essential to us. Gut bacteria play crucial roles in digesting food and modulating the immune system. They make small molecules that we need in order for our enzymes to work properly. They interact with us, altering which of our genes get turned on and off in cells in the intestinal walls. Some evidence suggests that they are essential for the building of a normal heart. …

Together, your gut microbes provide you with a pool of genes far larger than that found in the human genome. Indeed, the gut “microbiome,” as it is known, is thought to contain at least 100 times more genes than the human genome. Moreover, whereas humans are extremely similar to one another at the level of the genome, the microbiome appears to differ markedly from one person to the next.

What determines these differences? Good question. …

[...]

We know that the diversity of microbial species differs between your gut and mine, and that the less related we are, the more that will be true. Family members tend to have more similar gut microbes than nonrelatives, and preliminary evidence suggests that geography matters, too. So the gut microbes of people in China are different from those of people in the United States — though whether this is due to diet, human genes or geography is entirely unknown. …

There’s much more to the article than we can copy here. Click over to the New York Times and read it. It’s by Olivia, so you know it’s good.

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Always Ask Candidates: “How old is the earth?”

IT probably doesn’t matter if someone seeking the office of municipal sewer commissioner is a creationist, but it’s essential to know the mental condition of someone who wants to be a state legislator or governor — and it’s even more important with candidates for Congress or for President.

Such people don’t need to know much, if anything, about astronomy, geology, or biology, but — to put it bluntly — it’s vital to know whether a candidate for high office can think rationally. Perhaps the quickest way to smoke out the worst of the hard-core creationists is to ask: “How old is the earth?”

We’ve written about this issue before. The first time was a year ago, in How Old Is The Creationists’ Universe? That discusses a supernova which provides some clear, undeniable astronomical evidence that the universe is at least 168,000 years old, and that the speed of light hasn’t changed from then to now. It’s not proof of the actual age of the universe, but it’s enough to disprove the claim that everything began only 6,000 years ago, with variable lightspeed to explain away inconvenient observations to the contrary.

Later we wrote How Old Is the Earth and the Universe? That discusses many other lines of evidence supporting current scientific opinions. Most recently we wrote Creationism: How Old Is the Earth? There, we discussed the creationist opinion from Answers in Genesis.

Today, dear reader, we present How old is the Earth?, which appears in the Religion Section of the Times-Herald of Newnan, Georgia. That newspaper was foundeded “in the days after the Civil War ended,” and “has become an institution in the intervening 143 years.” It has a paid circulation of about 12,700.

As you read this, note that the author seems to assume that everyone is a creationist, but they disagree about the age of the earth. Here are a few excerpts. The bold font was added by us:

There are young-earth and old-earth creationists. Young-earth creationists believe the earth is 6,000 years old. Old-earth creationists believe the earth is 4.6 billion years old. Both young-earth and old-earth creationists add the genealogies from Adam to Abraham in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 and get 2,000 years and then add Abraham until today and get 4,000 years — giving us 6,000 years from Adam to today.

If you want to really dig into the varieties of creationists, see: Creationism Past and Present at the National Center for Science Education. Let’s read on in the Times-Herald:

How you interpret the “days” in Genesis 1 will determine how old you believe the earth is. Young-earth creationists interpret the days as a consecutive 24-hour period. There are three reasons why they believe this.

Three reasons? Okay, let’s see what they are:

First, the days in Genesis 1 are consecutively numbered and have an “evening” and “morning.” Second, Exodus 20:8-11 commands a literal week of six days of work and one day of rest based on God’s original creation/rest week. Third, Romans 5:12 says, “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin.” Old-earth creationism would have animal death entering the world before the sin of Adam and Eve.

Sounds good. Now let’s see what the old-earth creationists have to say for themselves:

Old-earth creationists do not believe the creation days in Genesis 1 were consecutive 24-hour periods. There are three reasons why they believe in an old-earth.

They also have three reasons? This is so confusing!

First, the Hebrew word for “day,” yom is used in different ways in the creation account. Genesis 1:5 refers yom only to daytime, not nighttime. Genesis 2:4 literally says, “the yom that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” Second, God’s rest on the seventh “day” has no evening and morning (Genesis 2:2-3). Hebrews 4:3-11 portrays this same Sabbath as continuing to the present time. Third, Adam could not have named all the birds and animals in 24 hours according to Genesis 2:19-20.

Where does all this leave us? We’ll skip a discussions of dinosaurs, and pick it up after that:

What about fossils? Young-earth believers understand fossils as depositions from Noah’s flood. Old-earth believers view them as artifacts of supernatural creative acts separated by long time spans — all happening on day six.

Wow! They don’t agree on much, do they? Here’s more:

Young-earth creationists believe that old-earth interpretations make the Bible subservient to science. Old-earth believers claim that young-earth believers make a clash between science and scripture — forcing everything within 6,000 years.

Things look rather messy in the world of creationism. This is how the article ends:

I was raised old-earth, but have noticed how many Christians are turning to young-earth creationism. Whether you believe the earth is 4.6 billion or 6,000 years old, this is a topic worth studying — making you realize how little you know and how incredible God’s creation is.

So there you are. Will they ever resolve things? Probably not. Your Curmudgeon will stick to science — it’s much less discordant. And we’ll also avoid Newnan, Georgia. Somehow, we don’t think we’d fit in.

As for what we recommended at the start of this post — asking political candidates about the age of the earth — it’s obvious that even if they say 4.6 billion years, you still won’t know whether they’re scientific in their outlook, or merely old-earth creationists. But the way things are going out there, at least it’s a better answer than 6,000 years. (Hey, check out the birth certificate of presidential candidates too.)

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Creationist Wisdom — Example 57

YOUR Curmudgeon once again brings you the view from Answers in Genesis (AIG), one of the major sources of creationist wisdom. They have a new article by a guest writer, Tommy Lohman, who runs this website: Creation Connection Ministries.

Lohman’s article at the AIG website is this: From Ancient Dinosaurs to Biblical Truth: A Testimony. It’s a thrilling account of how one man resolved the terrible conflict between a literal reading of Genesis, and what he had been taught about the long ago age of dinosaurs. This is a fascinating tale of spiritual anguish. We’ll give you some excerpts, with bold font added for emphasis. Here we go:

As a child, I was free to discover the world I lived in, oblivious to any dangers. One of the greatest dangers to my childhood exploration was being unable to filter out images and stories that were not true. Hidden within my dinosaur books, movies, and visits to museums was a misleading philosophy, telling me the world was very old and that life evolved “naturally” if given enough time. To my young mind, this sounded reasonable enough.

How horrible! He was being led astray by his dinosaur books. His mind was being poisoned! Let’s read on:

The philosophy planted in my mind was the story of evolution, which claims millions of years as its greatest ally. The “poster child” for this propaganda is dinosaurs. In science halls and academia across America and throughout the world, dinosaurs are presented as a prehistoric proof of evolution. As a child, I assimilated statements like “long, long ago,” “millions of years ago,” and “when dinosaurs ruled the earth” as fact, unaware I was building a worldview that was against God’s Word.

How easily the young are seduced by the evils of Darwinism! We continue:

Unguided at home and church, my belief about the age of the earth and the history of dinosaurs consisted of what I learned through my education and entertainment. I believed that scientists and paleontologists, backed by college educations and hours of fieldwork, were unbiased and open-minded. Therefore, I believed dinosaurs lived and died over 65 million years ago and that dinosaurs and man, separated by millions of years, never lived together.

Christianity and evolution were separate parts of my life. I did not realize the underlying humanist worldview of evolution rejected God as Creator and Sustainer of all life.

We’ve seen so many references to the diabolical humanists that we finally had to look them up: Humanism. Wikipedia’s long article begins with this:

Humanism refers to a philosophy centered around humankind. The word dates from the nineteenth century and refers to a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity of humankind, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to rationality, while tending to reject the supernatural or the divine authority of religious texts.

We see the problem. Here’s more from AIG:

At their most elemental levels, there are only two worldviews with which one can evaluate all aspects of life. One is biblical; the other is humanist. The first accepts God and His Word; the latter rejects Him. There is no real middle ground.

We’re not sure that those are the only choices. One can always be a Curmudgeon and grump about everything. Moving along:

I was seventeen when my worldviews collided. I believed dinosaurs had evolved over long ages (4.6 billion years), while also believing God spoke everything into existence in six 24-hour days. Not only were these worldviews inconsistent, I also realized they were incompatible! Seeking the help and advice of my pastor, I asked him, “Where do you put millions of years and dinosaurs into the Bible?”

Ah, now we get to the exciting part — it sounds like an old movie title: When Worldviews Collide! We can’t stop now. What advice did the preacher give him?

While I do not remember his exact words, the essence of the pastor’s polite response was, “I don’t know.” Assuming this was one of the “mysteries of God,” I walked away from the conversation—and a most important part of the Bible: the foundational book of Genesis. I continued attending church, but I failed to grow as a disciple of Christ. Still seeing the inconsistencies between the two worldviews, I was spiritually unequipped to defend the Bible and refute humanism.

It pains us to imagine that young man’s torment. Here’s another excerpt:

It is well documented that the battle of worldviews causes some to reject the Bible and follow the teaching of secular science, while others simply slide into apathy. Inevitably, one worldview will dominate our thinking. Sadly, man’s fallible opinion often wins.

So how did it all work out? On with the article:

God brought me back to His Word in an unusual and unorthodox manner. In 1993, a movie was released called Jurassic Park. Because of my childhood interest with dinosaurs, I went to see it. Though the plot teaches evolution, I reflected on the movie and realized there was more to dinosaurs than I had been taught. They were not a mystery; they were merely animals!

Verily, an astounding intellectual breakthrough! Continuing:

Driven to find the truth, I began studying the Bible in earnest, starting with the book of Genesis. God revealed my need to have a biblical worldview about every area of life, standing on the authority of God’s Word “from the very first verse.”

[...]

No longer a book of unconnected “stories,” I began to read the Bible as the true history of the world, and dinosaurs became simple to understand. According to John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16, God created everything. Recognizing that dinosaurs were land animals, I returned to the creation account in Genesis 1 and realized the simple truth that God created these fascinating animals on the sixth day of creation; they did not evolve.

Ah! Now it’s all clear. There’s more to the article. Click over to AIG to experience it in its fullness. It’s so heartwarming when one of these spiritual struggles has a happy ending.

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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