Evil-lution II

Iam constantly amazed at the proliferation on "Just-So" stories being foiseted off on the gullible public. I just watched a show on the Discovery Channel called "Evolve" that made me want to laugh out loud. The smoke, mirrors and outright contradictions being sold to the viewers was all quite professional; production quality was high end, experts were quoted, explanations all quite logical on the surface. If one listens uncritically it is all very believable and entertaining. On the other hand, if one lisens carefully, the inconsistencies are glaring.

They brought out one expert to discuss the transition from water to land animals. He pointed out that if evolution were correct, there ought to be a transitional form, then he brought out a fossil to demonstrate how that was exactly what we have.

Um... If evolution is correct there ought to me thousands of transitional forms, not a transitional form. This is still a massive unsolved dilemna evos face. And the big selling point of the supposed transitional form he brought out was the fact that it had a neck!

A neck.

Really? So we're supposed to believe that some lucky fish just happened to suffer the right genetic mutation to spontaneously produce a fully functional neck? That's your proof of evolution?! C'mon, I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even I know that's just stupid.

What's that? Evolution depends on massive periods of time to slowly produce such changes? Oh, I get it. Sorry, I almost lost it there. But since that's the case I suppose the fossil record will reveal the tens of thousands of transitional forms that produced this necky fish animal. What's that? We don't have them? Um... again, isn't that a bit of a problem?

YES!

The other really amazing blunder I saw that caught me off guard was the expert on giraffes who pointed out that their necks were so long because they used their heads to fight. Never mind that plenty of other short necked animals use their reads exactly the same way, what floored me was his off-hand revelation that this is also why their horns are blunted. Sharp horns, you see, combined with long necks would inflict lethal wounds during male-dominance combat. "Evolution," he said, "does not kill. Only people do that."

Wow.

I'm not sure, but I'd bet that sounded stupid even to his evolutionist colleagues. Evolution doesn't kill. HA Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!! I think he was like a professor at the Carnegie Institute or something. Seriously, I think he was trying to point out that natural selection favors species who don't kill their own in large numbers, or something like that; evolution doesn't like intra-species warfare. Even that is debatable, but what he actually said looking into the camera was one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

What makes me worry though is that he sold it well. He stood in the middle of the African savannah, looked right into the camera and after his cedentials as an expert were established he said it like it was the gospel truth. He ought to be arrested for that kind of intellectual irresponsibility, but I'm sure he'll get away with it and thousands of people will see the show and tell their friends that giraffes have blunt horns because evolution doesn't favor killers (except people, of course.)

I love good science, but THAT is not good science. Lord, save us from 'experts' like that.

Consumer Science (continued)

So, I'm not really sure I got my point across last time. Maybe this will help. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that 'science' is a good thing, but is just as susceptible to corruption as anything else in this world. It is often abused, mistreated, corrupted and falsified by people who ought to know better, i.e., the scientists themselves. It is also horribly abused by pastors and popular media, politicians and professors, but while I'd like to forgive them because they're mostly just ignorant, I can't do so without also holding them accountable for the pathetic mess they're making out of it, science, that is. I mean, everyone has their own agenda, which exists not because of scientific evidence, but mostly human desire (a.k.a. 'lust'), and yet they use science as a tool to justify it. And if the science is bad, wrong, incorrect or just plain contradicts what they have to say, they just say it louder and louder until someone listens, preferably a 'bitter and unsuccessful' scientist.

So, to review, science in and of itself is GOOD. (If it weren't for science, there are a thousand reasons you wouldn't be reading this!) People who twist it around to justify a personal or political agenda are BAD.

Science is the pursuit of facts, not truth, but truth is what people live by. That's why I get frustrated watching/listening/reading bilge produced by guys like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, who are so concerned about their version of the truth that they will co-opt and undermine the scientific process until it produces the facts they desire. Then they sell those facts to the world wholesale. Consumer science: science redesigned to meet the needs of the materialist philosophers waging war on ultimate truth.

Consumer Science

You know, I really do love science. I mean science has given us light bulbs and lap tops, nylon and satellite images of earth, not to mention antibiotics and the internet. If it weren't for science, you wouldn't be reading this right now. Science can be good, very good.

Having said that, it is also true that science can be bad, very bad. How so? Great question. Basically, science is bad whenever it leaves its mother-root of reason and instead pursues an agenda of other value. The best exampls of this are probably found in the pharmaceutical industry where billions are spent researching new drugs that will save human lives, then marketed relentlessly until someone wakes up to the fact that the latest miracle cure actually causes liver cancer, or severe rectal leakage... That isn't "science" anymore, its "commercial science." Another example of science awry can be found in the stream of materialist philosophy. What? Materialist philosophy; atheism; humanism; naturalism, whatever you want to call it. What I mean is that there is a great deal of 'science' out there being hijacked by a materialist agenda. Facts are twisted, or worse, denied outright in an effort to prove a non-science point. Usually what happens is that a scientist or group of scientists, starting with a personal bias or agenda, bends the rules to produce the result they desire, then calls every media outlet they can find. And if that fails, they just say the same thing louder and with more frequency until every gullible mark has been fooled. (Occasionally, they'll alert the media first, then perform their 'science,' which is even MORE unsettling.) Examples of this might include the "God helmet" touted so highly by Michael Persinger at Laurentian Univeristy (Canada), the Jesus Seminar, and meme theory (touted by the renowned atheist Richard Dawkins).

Gotta go, I'll finish this later...

The Dawkins Delusion

I've read a couple of Dawkins' books, and I have to say, as intelligent as he claims to be, this satire actually does a dedecent job of exposing some of his claims. And I don't care who you are, that's funny.

Letters to the Editor: Joplin Globe: Evolution

Updating the post of 9/27/05...

The Joplin Globe did, in fact, see fit to publish my editorial pretty much as I wrote it. That, of course, makes me very happy. See 'Primates' on A9 of today's paper or click here. It will be interesting to see whether or not anyone responds...

Letters to the Editor: Joplin Globe: Evolution

Once again the force of stupidity are mobilizing across the globe in the mindless pursuit of a world without Christ...

The Joplin Globe today published a column by Jay Ambrose which I quite agree with, except that Mr. Ambrose didn't go far enough. In the article he describes an expreience had at the London Zoo which I can only attribute to atheism run amok. In a letter to the editor of the Globe I added my own critique which is also here...

Regarding Jay Ambrose's column in the September 27 edition titled, "We're
not just another primate."

It’s good to see someone using common sense for once in their understanding of the human species. Mr. Ambrose was not only on-target with his arguments; he also did an excellent job of showing restraint towards those philosophically ignorant enough to disown their special place in creation.

I cannot claim that restraint. The idea that Mankind is just another species is a prime example of what philosophical dead-ends like naturalism, humanism and materialism—all of which stem from atheism—would like us to believe. The fact is however that such baseless and intellectually-challenged philosophy ultimately leads to the demise of morality and proliferation of mindless activity like 'frolicking around in an exhibit' in the London Zoo while scantily clad.

The very idea that we are ‘just another primate’ is morally repugnant not only to
Christians, but to Mormons, Jews, Muslims and other faith groups as well. If it was true that Mankind is just another species, then we would have to accept that nothing spiritually separates us from all other life on earth and we would lose all bases for morality. We would be forced to give credence to such immoral practices as abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, polygamy, etc., which is exactly what most atheists want.

According to Genesis 1:27 God made man “in His own image…” We are special. We are not like other created life for that very reason. To forget that fact is to ignore
not only the common sense truth that Mr. Ambrose ably pointed out, but our
Biblical heritage as well, and that is much more important.

Evil-ution I

Evolution v. Creation, the ultimate debate... Of course, being an intelligent human being, I recognize that bias is part and parcel of either side of the debate. Being a Christian with a brain, I further recognize that both sides have serious problems and ought to stop calling one another names and start talking about the issues. That not being really likely to happen, I will occassionally include a few tidbits herein that pertain to my side, the Christian side, of the debate. Yes, a number of people (mostly Christians) will disagree and say something indefensible like, "evolution and the Bible don't disagree," but they are wrong. Fortunately, Jesus won't keep anyone out of heaven based on whether or not they got their cosmology right.

So, here's the latest installment from Charles Colson as published in Christianity today... "Verdict that Demands Evidence."