Have you read Robert V. Gentry's book, Creation's Tiny Mystery, about his work on radiohalos? Or books by Duane T. Gish?

Are you very well familiar with the material put out by the Geoscience Research Institute? How would you rate the work that they do?



Have you, then, never found a single book supporting creationism that you believe was written by a writer who did his homework or that is not full of fundamental mistakes?



There are many, more profound problems that I find with evolutionary theory than simply the irreducible complexity argument.

But if I may, I would like to ask you a personal question about your views regarding the existence of the universe. Which of the following explanations for the universe's existence do you believe?

1) That it is an illustion?

2) That the world of matter and energy spontaneously arose out of nothing?

3) That the universe had no origin but has existed eternally?

4) That the universe was created?



If they are such intelligent and educated people as you say, why in the world would they conclude that all of Christianity is stupid and dishonest because of what one or two speakers say? It seems that would be rather like my basing my opinion of evolution on what I heard one or two evolutionists say. How many dishonest and stupid evolutionists are there? Probably quite a few, I should imagine. Would I be warranted in concluding that evolutionary theory is wrong simply because I find a lot of stupid evolutionists who have not done their homework? I think you'll agree I wouldn't be.

It seems to me you might be confusing difference of interpretation of the facts with being stupid or dishonest. Perhaps they are ignorant but most people dealing in this subject, particularly as a scientist or professional, would not really qualify as being stupid. As for being dishonest, that would mean you have reason to believe that the person is deliberately trying to deceive others, and while that does happen, I find that it is usually best to try and find some other explanation for why scientific and professional people say what they say about the creation/evolution issues. I start with the premise that most people spending their time on these questions are sincerely trying to learn the truth about things and I give them more than 20 minutes to make their case. Sometimes I find that I come to understand them better and even come to agree with them if I read their whole essay or listen to their entire presentation.

You can miss a lot if you cut people off prematurely. I know about this personally because in my work I spend most of my time listening to people with severe problems trying to explain themselves. They lie all the time, too, in their explanations, but I still go on listening.

A you aware that the SDA GRI does not support his work?

http://www.grisda.org/resources/GRI_vid-rev.htm

Weaknesses:

An alternative possible explanation for the radiohalos has been suggested, despite Gentry's assertions otherwise. Fluids under high pressure may have moved through the rocks, carrying uranium atoms or various decay products between the layers of mica-like minerals. Atoms of a particular element might accumulate where chemical conditions favored their precipitation, forming a polonium center.
The precursor of Po-218 is the gas, radon-222. Gas molecules could move through the rocks under pressure. In this case, Po-218 would be the first radiohalo produced at that site, followed later by Po-214 and Po-210.
The last two precursors of Po-214 are beta-particle emitters, which leave no radiohalos. If lead-214 were to precipitate out of solution and accumulate, it would first decay to bismuth-214, then to polonium-214. The only halos formed in this situation would be Po-214, followed later by Po-210.
In similar fashion, the last two precursors of Po-210 are lead-210 and bismuth-210. Po-210 could produce isolated halos.
A second alternative explanation for the polonium radiohalos may be that the halos did form rapidly, in dikes which were emplaced in a few hours or days. The exact geological context of most of the halos seems not to have been published, but at least some of the halos are believed to have come from dikes, and dikes are thought to have formed very rapidly.
Gentry does not discuss the amount of time required for a uranium halo to be produced. It seems unlikely that uranium, with a half-life of hundreds of millions of years, would decay fast enough in 6,000 years to produce a visible halo. This is one reason Gentry must propose a supernatural increase in the rate of decay.
Even if Gentry's argument for rapid granite creation is accepted, this tells nothing about whether it was formed recently or billions of years ago.
The arguments presented and the evidence necessary to understand the issues are too complex for most non-scientists to adequately grasp.
Recommendations: I felt the Gentrys did a good job of presenting their argument on video. They do not give adequate recognition to alternative explanations, and tend to dismiss, or even deny, contrary arguments. This makes the film less useful than it could be. The video could provide a very interesting topic for classes studying the philosophy of science, if the teacher is thoroughly acquainted with the topics presented. Any use of the material should avoid endorsing the conclusions presented, but simply offer them as one way of interpreting the evidence, and explore the possibility of other interpretations. Probably not suitable for secondary or elementary levels, but could be used at college level.





Have you read "Telling Lies For God" by the Australian geologist Professor Plimer. Gish is absolutely one of the liars I was refering to above.



Correct. I have NEVER found a book supporting creationism that is not full of fundamental mistakes. I have been looking for 30 years for one such book, ever since I realized as a disillusioned 18 year old that the creation science speakers were almost invariably charlatans.



Yes. They are at the honest end of the spectrum - especially more recently - although they do make it a requirement that their researchers reach politically acceptable conclusions



They can't be half as bad as the problems I have listed in the Origins forum with the few-thousand-years-of-life-on-Earth model



That the scientific evidence is strongly in favor of a Big Bang, but not conclusive, and that it has little to do with the Christian discussion of the origin of life on Earth.



When a denomination puts in reputation behind a speaker, and the speaker is an obvious fraud, there are two obvious conclusions - 1) that they can't find one that is not a charlatan to support, and 2) that rather than admit that they can't, they would rather back a charlatan



How many of them go around touting themselves as experts to give presentations to large audiences? Almost none. When did you last hear of such a public presentation?



No. It is

• Their flagrant refusal to face the facts
• Their flagrant misrepresentation of the facts
• Their flagrant refusal to accept when an argument has been discredited

which makes them either stupid or dishonest.

For instance, the repeated assertion that somehow evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics (it doesn't), or that you can't evolve irreducibly complex systems (you can), or that radiohalos prove creation (they don't), or that dinosaur and human footprints have been found together (they haven't), or ...

People who repeat these claims are simply not doing their homework

/Bevin

While I believe that the Bible teaches that the creation of everything on earth was accomplished within a literal week, there are some things within the text that cause some people to believe (wrongly, I think) that the days are long periods of time or that there was a gap between the first two verses of Genesis 1.

Any time you are dealing with language, you can be sure that not everyone is going to understand the words to mean precisely the same thing. It is just something that is part of life, part of being human, and we have to learn to live with those differences of viewpoint. Some people understand the rules of grammar better than others, for one thing. Some writers make mistakes and therefore what they write can be understood differently than the way they intended.

An example: 2 Peter 1:1-- "...our God and Savior, Jesus Christ..." How many is that referring to? I have studied with people who think that is talking about two, God and Jesus Christ, and they are sometimes even angry with me when I point out to them that, according to the rules of grammar governing this verse, Jesus Christ is both God and Savior. There is really no other legitimate way of understanding the way it has been written. Even though there are translations made (such as the KJV, whose 17th century translators did not understand Greek as well as we do today) that say otherwise, the truth is that the Greek can only be correctly translated one way: that Jesus is both God and Savior.

Yet the other day when I was studying with a Jehovah's Witness, and I asked him how many individuals this phrase is describing, he said, "Maybe to you, one, but to me, two." This despite the fact that two of their own publications translates it correctly. They do the same with some verses in the first two chapters of Genesis as well. (Their "translators" mistranslated Genesis 2: 2,3.) So we have to be patient with people's various views of these things or else we might as well give up trying to communicate with them.



Yes, I agree. They often oversimplify or misstate creationist positions and arguments, which I assume they do on account of ignorance rather than dishonesty.

A couple of years ago I dialogued for over one year via internet with an atheistic evolutionist about creationism, and he often made the discussion very personal by attacking my motives and the motives of various creationist writers and speakers whom he had never met. He had a pattern of doing this, so much so that it finally became impossible to communicate with him. I myself never make the argument a personal matter by talking about the evolutionist's motives, which I realize I can't possibly know anyway.




That is really good news, too. Added to that, of course, is even better news, which is that our heavenly Father not only created us but also redeemed us by sending Jesus Christ here in order to save us from eternal death.

I think it's infinitely better news than what I read just today in the first few chapters of Darwin's Origin of Species about life's being a battle for life, a struggle, a fight, a race for survival and that when it is all done, there is no-thing left except more fighting and more struggle, followed by death and dying and destruction.

Listen: Chapter 3: "All that we can do, is to keep steadily in mind that each organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical ratio; that each at some period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction."

And: "...All either prey on or serve as prey for others." Origin of Species, Chapter 6.



Most Adventists will find it attractive, but there are those in the church who believe in evolution, and these will no doubt raise objections.

GRI is a great resource and another reason to be proad to be an Adventist. Adventists tend to be moderates in many issues and the issue or orgins is no different.



There advice regarding Gentry's halos is good for many other creationist material. I am never too quick to jump on a bandwagon.



The Adventist approach to the issues should make creation science evangelism even more effective that what other denominations are doing.

"Possible explanation" "suggested". Doesn't sound like a very strong argument against Gentry to me. In any case it is certainly no proof.



Could you share one or two of those lies Gish told?





I think there has to be something wrong when most of the criticism is not about positions and arguments but about whether a speaker is a charlatan. If someone is truly a charlatan, then that should make it all the easier to destroy his argument because it will be obvious to everyone that he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

At 18 years of age, then, you knew more than the science speakers about this very complex issue? It sounds like at age 18 you already made up your mind about this subject, that creationism was being led by a bunch of charlatans. I have a very difficult time believing that these are a lot of charlatans: people such as Richard M. Ritland, who wrote A Search For Meaning In Nature; Harold G. Coffin, who published Accident Or Design?; biologist and author, Ernest S. Booth (whom I met as a teenager); Herold W. Clark, who wrote extensively about fossils; Robert H. Brown, who specialized in radiocarbon dating; Ariel A. Roth, who wrote some very good books on scientific method, etc., until his recent death; Edward E. White, who wrote on the theory of evolution; and Frank L. Marsh, who wrote numerous books and articles and was a professor of biology. Many more names could be given. Surely these men were not charlatans, just because you, perhaps at age 18, did not agree with them.

I have a book called The Evidence of God In an Expanding Universe, an anthology that contains 40 essays by as many scientists who declare their belief that the universe is the creation of God. I find it incredible that all these men could be charlatans.

Have you ever read anything by, or heard of, George MacCready Price? He authored a book once famous, called, The New Geology, which discussed creationism and uniformitarianism. (As a kid I used to sit near Mr. Price practically every Sabbath at the Loma Linda Hill Church.)





I am going to take your word for it on their requirement, but even assuming it is true, I am sure you realize they would not be the first company that expects their scientific researchers to arrive at certain conclusions. If you read Gentry's book, you will find that he presents documentation to prove that this was one of the problems where he was doing his research. In fact, this happens a lot at the university level where people don't like others coming up with conclusions that disagree with certain established viewpoints, such as that God exists and that He made the universe. People have actually been denied grants and postions because of it. In the former USSR, in present China, Vietnam, and Cuba, you can forget about ever working as a professional in almost any field of scientific endeavor if you identify yourself as a believer in God's creation of the universe. You have to toe the line in complete agreement with evolution or you can lose everything. I wish I heard American scientists supporting the right of scientists to believe in God and not to be forced to come up with politically correct conclusions. I agree that it is wrong but of course it is wrong no matter where it occurs.

[quote=Shane]GRI is a great resource and another reason to be proad to be an Adventist. Adventists tend to be moderates in many issues and the issue or origins is no different.



When I took a geology class at Loma Linda University, the Adventist professor several times took us students into the mountains to examine geological formations. On those trips I asked this creationist professor questions about the age of the earth and his answer was that he had no doubt whatsoever that the material our earth consists of is far older than 6,000 years old. The best explanation of that may be that God made the earth in the beginning without form and void and then later formed it and put life on it. All of this, then, would be what Moses intended for his readers to consider "the beginning," i.e., the beginning of the earth and of human history.

However, I asked Jacques B. Doukhan, an Adventist Hebrew scholar, about the Hebrew at Genesis 1: 1,2, whether the language gives us reason to believe that some sort of gap in time occurred between verses 1 and 2, and his answer was no. He said that the language appears to mean that it all happened together at one time rather than in stages.



I find the prospects of this kind of evangelism exciting, provided it is done professionally and with moderate stances on the issues we've just discussed where adequate answers are not yet available. As I said in a previous post, I also wouldn't want people to feel compelled to make a choice between faith in the gospel and belief in any particular scientific understanding. It would be good to discuss the issues, but not for the church to tell people what to think on those matters.

[quote=bevin]

Yes, evolutionists are totally ignoring the Bible and the existence of God, whereas creationists are taking God and the Bible into account when they view the same evidence that the evolutionists are looking at. That is why they often come up with different explanations of the same facts. That should not surprise anyone. I believe that the Bible has proved itself trustworthy both historically and scientifically. I don't know of anything along those lines where the Bible has been proved to be in error. There have been things that some people have doubted about the Bible, but when the proof has come in, it has always supported the truth of the Bible, as far as I have seen. That's been the case over and over in terms of archeology.



I don't think that is so hard to explain "plausibly." That doesn't mean the proof is in yet, and perhaps it may never be, but of course that is far different than being able to give, as you say, a plausible explanation. One such explanation is that the chalk cliffs of Dover are deep layers of ocean-bottom sediments collected in pre-Flood times on the sea floor. Here is what Harold Coffin wrote: "There is little reason to think that the pre-Flood seas did not have microscopic plants and animals such as the diatoms and foraminifera, and that their remains collected on the sea floor. Were these pre-Flood oozes buried by the Flood and then uplifted to the present exposed positions? This is a possibility. But before any conclusion is drawn regarding any specific deposit, the stratigraphic position, the associated fauna and flora, and other factors need to be studied."

I'm sorry to have to truncate your post because I would really like to continue this fascinating discussion, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I eventually plan to deal with some of the questions you raised and also to discuss some of the questions that evolutionary theory has difficulty answering.

In the meantime, I would like to ask you if you believe in the God of the Bible, and if so, how do you believe God is related to the existence of the earth and to the existence of human beings? You said, "That the scientific evidence is strongly in favor of a Big Bang, but not conclusive, and that it has little to do with the Christian discussion of the origin of life on Earth." So, then, how do you believe this earth became populated by complex oranisms such as yourself?

The claims that Gentry's work on radiohalo's strongly suggests creation simply have not survived scientific examination

Read the article in
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/6020_issue_22_volume_8_number_1__7_24_2003.asp

When Gentry phoned me after he was sent a copy of this article in preliminary form, I asked him about the sedimentary rocks. He claimed that metasedimentary rocks show no clear origin because of their recrystallization. This is totally wrong and I pointed out that many of these metasedimentary rocks show clear and unambiguous sedimentary features, such as clastic grains, cobbles, ripple marks, mudcracks, bedding plains, and, most important, stromatolites. He made no reply.




First let me quote from the above URL

Such maneuvers appear to be common. For example, when Duane Gish spoke some time back at Georgia State University, the "debate" was set up by the philosophy club with Gish talking for forty-five minutes, three opponents responding for five minutes each, and Gish taking another forty-five minutes to answer. Fortunately, I was not a participant that time

Here is an extract from "Telling Lies For God". The whole book is a fascinating rebuttal of the whole Australian Creation Science scene.

Page 58 Telling lies for God.

In the comic book. Have you been brainwashed? Of the 77 scientific concepts explained by Gish the own the one he got right was it because rotates around the sun!

...
Gish's comic booklet was clearly written for the young and scientifically well-educated...

In the next part of the diagram, he wrote "pre-Cambrian void of fossils". This is not true. About 80% of geological time was occupied by the Precambrian (older than 570 million years), which recorded a 3000 million year history of life. This statement is so far from the truth that is absolutely incredulous that Ph.D. from Berkeley to put his name to it.
...
this had been known for decades before Gish wrote his comic book...
I challenged him on this point. He firstly claimed that he did not write the booklet. When I pointed out that he was the actual author, he claimed it was a book of actual lecture he gave. He further obfuscated by stating that at the time of writing his book with no pre-Cambrian fossils have been recognized... Gish had apparently looked at only one publication... the pre-1972 literature had numerous works on pre-Cambrian fossils and, working out of his area of expertise, Gish had not shown one iota of due diligence

Gish stated that the booklet was no longer being sold and that a new book called "Evolution? The fossils a no!" replaced it. It was unfortunate for Gish that on that very day in March 1988 (the old booklet) was on sale in the foyer of that lecture theater. I had just bought a copy of it for $.30




Sigh, no. Actually the exact opposite - I was a very firm tradional SDA in a largely aethist high-school and university, well-known for my commitment to my religion. I was a social outcast because of my refusal to get involved in drinking, partying, etc and because I had taken a Conscienscious Objector status rather than participate in my high-school's military training program. My father had copies of McCready Price's books and also "The Genesis Flood".

It was against this background, but also a solid background in science (I was the only student in my graduating class of 150 to score high enough to get a government scholarship to university) that I attended a weekend seminar by some Australian Creation Science group.

It was there, to my disgust, that I realized that the speakers were either lying or stupid. They were making statements that I knew to be false, and arguments that I knew were false.

From there, I started to dig more deeply, hoping that I would find a solid foundation for Creation Science. And I have been digging ever since, and everything I have found has made me ashamed that Christianity is associated with this extensive fraud that is taking place in this arena.

For many years, ages 18-38, I was neutral - hoping that the evidence would turn up. But in those 20 years only two things happened (a) the Creation Scientists kept repeating nonsense that had been discredited decades earlier, and (b) the evidence for evolution got more and more extensive and more and more solid.

The SDA church sensed this, and kept quiet about the topic from 1982 - 2000. And then Clifford Goldstein and other ill-informed and illogical people started pushing the topic again in the Sabbath School lessons and the Adventist Review and in

After a couple of rounds of fighting this nonsense, and in combination with other factors, I decided that my personal sense of integrity would not let me be a member of an organization that peddled such nonsense, so I resigned my SDA membership - walked away from being treasurer and Sabbath School superintendent.

Now I watch from the side-lines, as the SDA organisation continues to try to reconcile the irreconcilable. It has all the fascination and sadness of watching a slow motion plane crash where the pilots have ignored and continue to ignore all the warnings they have been given.

/Bevin

This is the usual Creationist hand-wave that simply does not explain the actual facts.

Before you try to explain their origin, you should at least find out
(a) How extensive (area, depth) they are.
(b) Any structures (e.g. variations in fossils, distinct layers) in them that to be explained.

When David Koot was faced with this question in this forum, he went to the (I think it was) GRI. They referred him to an female SDA geology professor (retired). She said that the Lord had not given her the problem of explaining them. If such a person has the honesty to admit that she doesn't have a solid explanation, then you understand why a hand-wave doesn't cut it.

/Bevin

One cannot hold a mature discussion with those that offer "trap questions." Those are questions in which the person hopes his or her opponent answers in a way he can be trapped and look stupid. Those are games teenagers play and really have no place among mature Christians.

I saw the trap of the white cliffs question from way off and was a bit disappointed when I saw John317 fall into it. Creation scientists do have plausable explanations for it and the white cliffs pose issues that evolutionists cannot answer. However I refuse to discuss such issues with those that have no interest in acting mature and conducting themselves civily.