The website of the Christian Post, which describes itself as “the nation’s most comprehensive Christian news website,” recently brought us the news that we wrote about here: Georgia Purdom Proves Adam & Eve. Now, that worthy journalistic organ has surprised us again.
This is the headline that got our attention: Nuclear Physicist Insists Evolutionary Worldview ‘Fails Dismally;’ Says Denial of Genesis Account Should Not Be ‘Taken Lightly’ by Christians. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:
A nuclear physicist who recently spoke out against the theory of evolution in relation to the origin of human life, has warned Christians that public denial of the Genesis creation account cannot be “taken lightly.”
Wow! Who is this nuclear physicist? We’re told:
In an interview with Christian News Network on Monday, Brandon van der Ventel, who holds a Ph D. from South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, stressed the importance of a biblical worldview while addressing the theory of evolution.
Here’s a link to that interview: Nuclear Physicist Declares: ‘Science Will Never Contradict The Bible’. The Christian News Network probably doesn’t interview many nuclear physicists. They have a picture of him. He’s very distinguished looking.
We Googled around to see what we could learn about Brandon van der Ventel, but the hits were mostly from creationist websites. It appears that he obtained his B.Sc. in 1992 and his Ph.D. in 1999, both from Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Wikipedia has no entry on him, but they do have a writeup on Stellenbosch University. It says: “In December 2014, specialists at the university performed the first successful penis transplantation, on a 21-year-old man.” It must be quite a place!
Let’s read on in the Christian Post, as they quote van der Ventel:
“The denial of the Genesis account is not a matter to be taken lightly by Christians,” said van der Ventel. “If the biblical record is not true, then we are left with naturalism and atheism, of which the consequences are truly horrific.”
Horrific indeed. Van der Ventel continues:
“The final arbiter of any theory must be based on the strength of its description of physical reality,” he continued. “It is in this respect that the theory of evolution fails dismally.”
Isn’t this great? They quote him again:
“Physics can also play a role when it comes to the sticky question of dating certain objects. It is important to understand that dinosaur bones, for example, are not found with a time stamp attached to them. Every publicized age is based on certain assumptions and conflicting radioactive dates are commonplace,” he added.
This guy ought to be working for Ken Ham. He’s to nuclear physics what Jason Lisle is to astrophysics. Here’s more:
Van der Ventel believes Christians need to hold fast to the knowledge that God created the universe with a specific order, and argues that if faith in the Genesis account is lost, the validity of the rest of the Bible can be questioned. He further contends that the theory of evolution is the No. 1 reason why many Christians no longer believe in the creation account.
That’s pretty much it. The rest of the article drifts off to other things, such as their recent report about “well-respected molecular geneticist Georgia Purdom.” So that’s where we’ll leave it. However, we suspect we’ll be hearing more about Brandon van der Ventel.
Copyright © 2015. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Another candidate for having his Ph.D. revoked. A classic example of ideology over reality.
“The final arbiter of any theory must be based on the strength of its description of physical reality…” And since the bible’s descriptions of physical reality are mostly wrong, I guess that’s a set of theories we can ignore. Thanks, Brandon for confirming that.
I work with a nuclear engineer masquerading as a petroleum engineer.
Georgia’s capabilities and his are similar. That is, not particularly related to actual expertise.
But hey, I’m happy the titers like her.Thanks for the laughs Georgia.
You’re work has scientific “credibility” And if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their ass when they jumped.
Stellenbosch is a seriously prestigious university, mostly associated with medical research, but “nuclear medicine” is also one of its big hitters. Possibly Van der Ventel hails from that program.
He’ll be an Afrikaner, with a name like that, and anyone who has had contact with that particular culture knows how deeply Calvinist protestantism is rooted in it. It is also said also to be constantly productive of narrow, hidebound, doctrinaire authoritarians. I wouldn’t trust that, myself, for no reflection on any human society is ever reliable – except that it has been true of every Africaner I have ever known. Only a small sample, true.
He further contends that the theory of evolution is the No. 1 reason why many Christians no longer believe in the creation account.
Conveniently forgetting the hundreds of other reasons as to why people no longer believe in the creation account.
Why should we give credence to a physicist as he holds forth on a biological problem. There is the occasional nut in science that holds views that contradict hundreds of experiments, just because said nut doesn’t like the implications of the experimentally proved version. This guy is similar to the “geologist” Kurt Wise who is a young earth creationist and who has been quoted as follows: ” Kurt Wise doesn’t need the challenge; he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence.” Educated at University of Chicago and Harvard – a few nits do get by!
Boy, Kurt Wise sounds like an even bigger wiener, I mean winner, than van der Ventel. Essentially he’s saying, “Even if I admitted to myself that Scripture was wrong, I would still insist publicly that it’s right.” I count at least one, and possibly two, commandments being broken.
Wikipedia entry for Kurt Wise:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Wise
Always the fallacious binary thinking and false dichotomy argumentation. With thousands of religions and their respective gods that are currently worshiped, if the christian bible is wrong then the obvious conclusion to the “deep thinker” is that no gods exist. None of this matters to me as they all have had as much evidence for their gods as all the thousands of now dead religions that came before them. It’s the same fallacious thinking that gives us “if evolution is wrong then creationism is correct” or “if evolution isn’t enough [insert mathematical argument from big number incredulity] then it must be the actions of an intelligent designer”. On and on it goes.
And there it is, the appeal to consequences. He actually uses the word consequences. As if a description of reality must be false if you don’t like the implications or find it too hard to reason your way through life with a difficult truth.
My favorite appeal to consequences argument that was tossed my way years ago was “if evolution is true it would make rape ok and we can’t possibly be living in a world like that”. I said my piece, pointing out the fallacious thinking and asking “if you realized that evolution was actually true should we lie about it and teach everyone that it is false?” to which this person said yes. I backed out of the conversation explaining that I felt it a waste of time trying to have a rational conversation with someone who is so desperately in need of developing their critical thinking skills. Life is too short for that crap.
Brandon van der Ventel on radioactive dating invoking the Ken Ham “were you there” mantra:
“Radiometric dating does not measure the age directly, but rather the ratio of the radioactive (unstable) parent nucleus to the stable daughter nucleus, as well as the present decay rate. However, several assumptions need to be made to proceed with the calculation:
First, one needs to assume that here were no daughter nuclei present at the start; that is, the presence of the daughter nucleus is entirely due to the decay.
“Second, there had to be no leakage of either parent or daughter nuclei into or out of the sample. But how can we be sure of any of these assumptions if no-one was present when the rocks were
formed or if the change in the elements were not monitored over the entire geological history?
“Third, the equation is valid only if the decay rate (λ) is a constant, and there is much evidence against this.”
In December 2014, specialists at the university performed the first successful penis transplantation, on a 21-year-old man.”
Of course, “successful” is a matter of interpretation. The guy went in thinking he was getting a tonsillectomy.
Prof T. almost got it right.
In fact, it was a penis transplant on to the neck of alumnus with a PhD in nuclear physics…
van der Vental sez:
Ah, the tired old “consequences” argument. Won’t somebody think of the children???