Showing posts with label Privileged Planet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Privileged Planet. Show all posts

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Genius, Harvard and Darwin Doubters


          *** UPDATE ***
Be sure to catch our latest video.  We tackle a potpourri of topics:  Thunder & C-14, Tree Rings & Ammonites,  Norman Macbeth (Darwin Retried), OMNI magazine & censorship ... #Rubio #NormanMacbeth #Darwin #AltMed #TreeRings

Hotep = B @

Chris Langan has an IQ of 195, so he’s a genius. He made a perfect score on the SAT exam. Chris competed on the game show “One Versus One Hundred” hosted by Bob Saget and won $250,000. [1]
Chris gets ideas from his dreams, “I found if I go to bed with a question on my mind, all I have to do is concentrate on the question before I go to sleep and I virtually always have the answer in the morning. Sometimes I realize what the answer is because I dreamt the answer and I can remember it.” [2] Imagine what wonderfully creative ideas Adam, the initial human, gained from his dreams!
Chris Langan claims that, “Harvard is basically a glorified corporation, operating with a profit incentive. That’s what makes it tick. It has an endowment in the billions of dollars. The people running it are not necessarily searching for truth and knowledge. … When you’re there, they got a thumb right on you. They are out to make sure you don’t step out of line.” [3] Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Blink, disagrees: “… university life gives them [professors] the freedom to do what they want to do and what they feel is right.” unless, of course, you are showing the weaknesses of evolution. [4] Apparently, Gladwell has not seen Ben Stein’s film “EXPELLED.” Jerry Bergman has written a 477 page book, Slaughter of the Dissidents, documenting the academic persecution of Darwin Doubters. For example, Norbert Smith has a Ph.D. in zoology from Texas Tech University. After Francis Rose, a biology prof at Tech, learned of Smith’s rejection of Darwinism, he formed a committee to annul Smith’s doctorate! This was not successful. [5] One creationist with a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard has been fired several times from teaching positions because of his views on origins. [6]

Dr. Philip Bishop, a physiology professor at the University of Alabama, was persecuted for offering an optional lecture on the evidence for God seen in human physiology. [7] Nancy Bryson (Ph.D. chemistry) was the Science Department Head at Mississippi University for Women (MUW). After she gave a talk critical of Darwinism, she was demoted and was eventually forced to leave MUW. [8] Dr. Caroline Crocker taught biology at George Mason University for several years. After a student complained, she was told not to present the evidence for Intelligent Design (ID) and ultimately lost her job. She was also let go from a community college because of her doubts about Darwinism. [9]
Intolerance towards questioning amoeba-to-Adam evolution is pervasive. Just consider the case of Raymond Damadian, inventor of the MRI. The probable reason why he did not receive the 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine was because he is a creationist. [10]
In 2004, Guillermo Gonzalez, astronomer at Iowa State University (ISU), wrote The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery. Gonzalez also appeared in the film by the same name. For taking such a strong stand for design, he was denied tenure and was fired from ISU in 2007 despite the fact that he had published almost 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers! [11]  If ID is true, who is the Intelligent Designer?

Maybe the genius was right after all.

“For dreams result from much work and a fool's voice from many words” (Eccl. 5:3, Holman)
How old is the Earth?  Is Darwinism valid?  How does the Renaissance of Catastrophism relate to the age of the world?  Is your favorite planet thousands or billions of years old?  Discover the shocking evidence in this powerful new book, YES – Young Earth Science by Jay Hall (at Amazon.com). 

Here are some cool Zazzle items on Young Earth Science (YES): 

Notes:
1) Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, (Little, Brown & Co., 2008, New York, NY), pp. 69-73.
2) Ibid., p. 113.
3) Ibid., p. 96.
4) Ibid., p. 97.
5) Slaughter of the Dissidents by Jerry Bergman, (Leafcutter Press, 2008, Southworth, WA), pp. 120-122.
6) Ibid., p. 372.
7) Ibid., pp. 201-209.
8) Ibid., pp. 232-241.
9) Ibid., pp. 242-249.
10) Ibid., pp. 274-295.
11) Ibid., pp. 296-329.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Scientific American - Jan 2009


The January 2009 issue of Scientific American (SciAm) was dedicated to evolution (page references are from this issue). One article rightly attacks the errors of evolutionary psychology (p. 74). Supposed “talking with the dead” is also debunked (p. 36). Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch, both from the National Center for Science Education, write an attack piece on creationism (pp. 92-99).

Throughout this issue, good and evil, morality and ethics are mentioned. Yet, without a Moral Lawgiver and an ultimate Judgment Day (not the NOVA episode) morality makes no sense. Even Immanuel Kant (d. 1804) held that we must accept the existence of God for morality to have meaning. [1]

Atoms-to- Adam evolution and atheism are strongly linked. Darwin doubted the reality of God, “This very old argument from the existence of suffering against the existence of an intelligent first cause seems to me a strong one…” (Autobiography p. 90). Darwin no longer doubts the reality of God (see prior post).

How is it that most of the world accepts God’s existence if evolution is so obvious? Consider these statistics of global adherents:
Christians 33.3%
Muslims 21.0%
Jews 0.2%
Total who believe in a Creator 54.5%
Atheists 2.3% [2]
Darwin was not fazed by these facts, “This argument would be a valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God…” (Autobiography p. 91). How many people believe that the Apollo landings on the moon were a fraud? Or consider prisoners who rationalize their crimes. Truth is not determined by universal assent.

A number of articles in this issue focus on natural selection. Edward Blyth, a creationist, published a paper on natural selection in 1835 long before Darwin’s The Origin of Species. Natural selection is a conservative process. What is needed for Bacteria-to-Brainiac evolution to take place is new information in the genetic code and Darwinists cannot explain this. New info is needed to make eyes, wings and other complex organs.
John Rennie, the editor in chief of SciAm, mentioned Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life on the Burgess Shale which contains the remains of many strange and unique creatures (p. 6). However, this issue has little of the provocative thought that Gould shares. Gould states that, “The history of life is… not the conventional tale of steadily increasing excellence, complexity, and diversity.” [3] Gould points out that the organisms represented in the Burgess Shale in British Columbia belong in 15 to 20 phyla (basic body plans) most of which are now extinct. Some estimates of life in the modern world reach up to 32 phyla. [4] Most of these phyla exist in the Cambrian and yet there is little in the Pre-Cambrian showing intermediate transitional forms from single-celled organisms. This Cambrian Explosion is a major problem for evolution. Both Gould and Darwin admitted that this is a major difficulty. [5] [6]

In an ad on page 11, Paul Davies is mentioned. Davies wrote Cosmic Jackpot that describes the fine-tuning of the universe. If certain physical constants were just slightly different, life itself would be impossible. Davies appeared in the pro-Intelligent Design film Privileged Planet, even though he is not an ID advocate. SciAm overlooks the evidence that the cosmos was made for life and scientific investigation.

SciAm should take Darwin’s advice and allow a creationist response. Darwin states in his intro to The Origin of Species that, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question…” [7]

Here are some great sites from the “other side”:
Creation Moments
Creation Research Society (creationresearch dot org)
Institute for Creation Research (icr dot org)
Answers in Genesis (answersingenesis dot org)
Creation Ministries International (creation dot com)

SciAm may be contacted by email or snail mail:
editors@SciAm.com
Letters to the Editor
Scientific American
415 Madison Ave
NYC NY 10017


Notes:
1) Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler (Baker, Grand Rapids, 1999), p. 498.
2) Time Almanac 2008 (Encyclopædia Britannica , Chicago, 2008), pp. 600, 601.
3) Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould (W.W. Norton, New York, 1989), p. 25.
4) Ibid., p. 99.
5) Ibid., pp. 56, 57.
6) On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (Mentor, New York, 1958 ed.), pp. 308-312, ch. 10.
7) On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (Mentor, New York, 1958 ed.), p. 28.

In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind. With Him are wisdom and strength, He has counsel and understanding. (Job 12:10, 13)