THE CHANGING CLIMATE OF SCIENCE

Greenhouse Hockey Sticks

You may never have heard of MBH98 but much has happened since 1998 when it first was published in the TAR (Third Assessment Report) of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). First, there was a flurry of press releases saying the climate scientists had found the smoking gun that proved a sudden upswing in global temperatures in the industrial age of the western nations. A graph of temperatures during the last 1000 years showed a distinctive sudden upward rise of temperature unprecedented in the previous 1000 years. Then this information was distributed to government agencies and school boards and the school children. Eventually, Former Vice-President Al Gore would write his book, The Inconvenient Truth. Sounds ominous. The publicity machine was awesome. If only it was just as truthful.

Of course, we all realize that 1000 years ago there were no thermometers. The scientist had to use temperature proxies. Some animals and plants and their growth rate was temperature dependent. Records of the past condition of various features of planet life existed in the trees, the ice and flora in the strata in the ground. Statistical analyses of these records was accumulated by scientists around the world. The UN then funded several people to analyze these various proxies. Dr. Mann was one. His conclusions confirmed the IPCC's opinion that there had been a recent rapid rise in the global temperatures. This had to be related to our industrialization. Thus we humans were responsible for upsetting the delicate temperature balance on our planet. Humans had once again callously neglected our responsibility to be kind to the environment. 

Well, it had some experts perplexed. Below is the temperature graph of global mean temperature for 1000 to 1988 published in 1990 by the IPCC itself. Notice that back in the medieval period that there was an historic high temperature.

1990 IPCC Global mean lower atmosphere temperatures

So what happened in the 8-year period between the publication of this graph and the one published by Mann?  Mann and his confreres had a problem. In order to justify the UN's position he had to hide the Medieval Warming Period.

So the proxies, blue line, had to be lowered so that when the red line was tacked on it showed a big swing in temperature change. The red line represents the thermometer readings. (NB the values are not absolute values but the degrees above the average). Mathematically, the way to make the blue line values lower was to raise the statistical average. So Mann introduced a factor that divided his data by the average temperature of the 20th century instead of the value of the whole period. The mathematics of the process is very complicated but can be found here.
 http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2005/09/mcintyre.grl.2005.pdf

One scientist  who suspected that this analysis was flawed was Stephen McIntyre. Although he initially found Mann co-operative in sharing data and programming, it soon ended. McIntyre teamed up with a professor at Guelph University, McKitrick. Lacking Mann's source program they built a program to do the job. The results were quite at variance with Mann's results. They then played with the program procedure until they could almost duplicate Mann's results. This produced a claim that Mann had not done what he claimed he had done but had invented non-standard procedures. Furthermore, the foxtail bristlecone pines were known to be sensitive to CO2 concentrations and thus their change in ring size could be correlated to CO2 itself and not temperature change.

When the foxtail bristlecone pine data were excluded from the input that alone was sufficient to eliminate the hockey stick shape. When the non-standard procedures were removed a significant change occurred in the values of the Medieval Warm Period. Both were responsible for producing results significantly different from the 1990 results.

McIntyre and McKitrick also produced a set of proxy data that had no trend in the data - simple variation around the mean value. Such a data set combined with an unbiased methodology should have produced minimal change of temperature results. It actually produced the same hockey stick shape produced in Mann's procedure. This in itself means that Mann's results are meaningless. His methodology cannot distinguish between non-trending and trending data. McIntyre and McKitrick asked for Mann's paper to be withdrawn but they were refused.

Then a team from the National Academy of Sciences investigated Mann's graph and concluded that the temperature in the 1990's might be the highest in the last 400 years - not the last 1,000. This sounds like a innocuous response but everyone had already agreed upon this since the 1990 IPCC report. They effectively said there is nothing new. The failure to acknowledge that the steep climb in temperature since 1900 shown by Mann's graph was in fact a stinging indictment of his work. The media failed to understand the import of this.

Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce as well as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the American Congress became interested and Dr. Wegman, a statistician, was asked to examine the problem. Concluded that the methodology did not provide appropriate results, that Mann did not have full familiarity with statistical methods or consult with an authority who did, that the community of temperature scientists were very interconnected thus possibly the paper had a vetting that was too friendly and that federally funded research should be shared for vetting and further research, at least after publication if not before. The full report is here http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf .

One final conclusion needs to be drawn from all this. There is a mechanism in physics that explains the so-called greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases. There is no controversy that it exists. The biggest greenhouse gas is water composing 75% of the greenhouse effect. Methane is smaller by volume than CO2 but its heating effect is 32 times stronger. CO2 is in effect only the third highest contributor to the greenhouse effect and its effectiveness as a heat source in the atmosphere is now understood to be substantially less than was thought earlier. Human CO2 is only 5% of the total CO2. It is then questionable whether man-made CO2 has anything but a marginal effect within the greenhouse gases.

There is one very large and untested assumption in the UN's IPCC narrative. What are the other contributors to atmospheric temperature change and what is the relationship to the temperature change caused by greenhouse gases. All the atmospheric models treat the Sun's energy as constant and this is known to be false. The Sun's energy variability is also capable of overshadowing the entire heating or cooling affect of greenhouse gases and thus a fortiori that of CO2 and thus a fortiori that of man-made CO2. This is totally ignored by the IPCC.

Where is the case that proves that CO2 variability corresponds directly to atmospheric temperature changes?  There are many instances where increase in atmospheric CO2 has produced no change in temperature, including the last 18 years. From 1930-40 CO2 decreased but temperature increased. From 1945-1975 CO2 increased while temperature decreased. Even when there is a positive correlation of the data overall as Mann et al claim, it does not mean that CO2 is the cause. The police force of cities is positively correlated to the crime rate. I think we know that higher crime rates produce larger police forces and not vice-versa. The UN claims that the probability that their thesis is true is now 99%. They have failed still to actually measure with any certainty past temperature changes, to distinguish how much of the increase in temperature is caused by CO2 and how much the increase in CO2 is caused by increase in temperature.

Despite these efforts to have appropriate measuring of the past temperature changes and the appropriate determination of the causes and the probability of a statistically significant effect from CO2 contribution - despite all this - UN efforts to push the war on CO2 go unabated. The publicity machine behind them and their allies in the worldwide system of meteorological bureaucracies and school systems has produced a widespread acceptance of their views. The agenda is very costly both in tax dollars, household budgets and in economic freedom. The gains in controlling people, their businesses and their governments is far to lucrative to consider any lesser mortal than themselves. One day we shall discover the cost of following their agenda.

Alan Montgomery

CONSTANT RADIOACTIVE DECAY RATES

Introduction

We hear only that radioactive decay rates are constant. After all they measure the decay in laboratories and publish them as decay constants. Work was done a long time ago to try and make the decay process change. Scientists were successful at making them vary by as much as 5% under extreme electromagnetic fields. Nice to know but not very world changing.

Well, hang on to your hats. A study by Fabio Cardone1 of the Institute per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati in Rome have shown that ultrasonic cavitation can make the textbook rates rise dramatically. By this I mean the decay rate of thorium-228 was increased in experiments in water as a result of ultrasonic cavitation in excess of a factor of 10,000.

In the "Hunt for the Red Oktober", you may remember the American submarine reversed its engines for a moment and this alarmed the crew, not because the engines would be heard, but rather because the propeller blades were cavitating. Cavitation is caused by small vacuum bubbles formed in moving water, which, when collapsed, produce implosions and shockwaves.  This is just a preliminary study. Yet, if true, this re-opens the whole question of just how accurate the radiometric dates from the field are.

Billions of Years

One of the premier evidences given for the dating the Earth at 4.5 billions years is radiometric dating. Many dates have been recorded from isotopes such as potassium-argon, rubidium-strontium, uranium lead and uranium-thorium.   Geologists know the rate of radioactive decay so they measure the ratio of parent to daughter elements. Plug the results into a formula and out pops the age. The problem is, many studies in the field experience large variations in results from the same minerals in the same area. Many results on rocks of known age have huge errors. They are explained by contamination but nobody knows for sure. Dates determined by radiometric dating methods which are not what the Darwinists expected are frequently unpublicized or written off as contamination errors.

There is no scientific evidence of what the radioactive constants were millions of years ago. No one was there to observe and measure the conditions. Decay rates cannot be proven to have remained constant.  This new study admits the possibility that a global catastrophic flood which caused massive cavitation might have tampered with the decay rates for a short period of time. If true then radioactive decay is no longer to be trusted to give true dates for the age of the Earth. An exception might be made for carbon-14  because most of the CO2 would have been absorbed since the flood. However, these dates are less than 100,000 years.

The lay person may not appreciate that without this technique there is little on the Earth, the Sun or the planets and their moons that appears to be old or that can be used to date them in the billions of years. Salts building up in the oceans take less than 60 million years, even starting with pure distilled water. Erosion rates are fast enough to put all rocks above sea level back into the sea in 16 million years. The helium content in the atmosphere would accumulate in less than 100,000 years. The age of Earth's magnetic field is less than 10,000 years old. Creationists successfully predicted the strength of 5 planetary magnetic fields based on the assumption that the age of these fields was only 6,000 years. The rings of Saturn will be clogged and dimmed by space dust in the next million years. It cannot remain as bright as it is now for billions of years.  You can see the youth of this solar system in the following presentation of Genesis Week. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFzJapa2REs&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL608FF9C588CFD9BC

We live in interesting times.

Alan Montgomery

1 F Cardone, R Mignani and A Petrucci 2009 Phys. Lett. A 373 1956.

DARWINISM AND THE GALAPAGOS FINCHES

The Galapagos Islands contain a very large number of different finches, as well as flamingos, penguins, giant tortoises, iguanas, seals, butterflies, and insects. Forty-two percent of the plants found on the Galapagos, seventy-five percent of the bird species and ninety-one percent of the reptiles and mammals are not found anywhere else in the world. Darwin’s name is long associated with these finches though he did not discover them, properly identify them or even use them in his book, Origin of the Species by natural Selection.  

Actually, it was not Darwin who mythologized the Galapagos finches, but 20th century evolutionists such as Percy Lowe and David Lack. Lack's 1947 book Darwin's Finches was an icon-maker for the Darwinists [1].  Thus Darwin's finches have been studied more than any other bird families.  In 1991 Peter Grant claimed he had found 20 cases of natural selection turning a middle ground finch into a great ground finch. This, he claimed, was direct evidence of evolution [2]. So has one species been transformed into another? A species is defined as a population consisting of individuals with similar structural and functional characteristics, able to mate only with one another in nature, and which are unable to mate successfully with other individuals outside their own population. 

According to this definition, it is incorrect to claim 14 distinct species of finches in the Galapagos Islands as they interbreed significantly. Indeed, Grant himself admits that a maximum of 6 separate species and perhaps less than the 14 recognized currently [3]. Darwin’s claim in the Origin was that his natural selection could be responsible not only for variation within a species but for the origin of species or transpeciation from one species to another.  The Galapagos finches have no genetic differences among them [4]. Max Planck Institute and Princeton University in 1999 announced that the traditional classification of Galapagos finches was not apparent at the molecular level [5] and Hau and Wikelski state, "There is no evidence for an absolute genetic barrier between Darwin's finch species. Thus many species can potentially hybridize.” [6] All evidence points to the fact that they are all the same species.

1. Geospiza magninostris 2. Geospiza fortis 3. Geospiza parvula 4. Certhidea olivecea

 Much of Grant’s claim emphasized the change in beak size. The average size of the Galapagos finches' beaks increases or decreases according to food resources and that depends greatly of the rainfall. El Niño takes place at irregular intervals every two and 11 years, and at different levels of intensity, also alters the climatic balances. At such times there is excessive rainfall; subsequent years are then generally dry and arid. In years of plentiful rain, ground finches can easily obtain the seeds they need to grow and breed. In years of drought, however, the plants on the islands may produce a limited amount of seeds and the number of finches decrease.  The rainfall in 1976 was normal, but fell to one-fifth in 1977. During the drought there was a significant drop in the quantity of seeds and a major reduction in the numbers of ground finches. The population fell 85%. The finches that survived the drought were rather larger than normal and had 5% wider beaks.  

When the rains returned the Darwinian process reversed and the finches returned to their previous size and previous beaks. Yet, in his book, Weiner described this change in the beak as "the best and the most detailed demonstration to date of the power of Darwin's process. [7]" The fact that a reversal occurred after the drought resulting in no long-term evolutionary change is neither mentioned nor interpreted.   California University biologist, Dr Jonathan Wells, stated the claims from the finch evidence were "exaggerated" [8].  Berkeley University's Professor Phillip Johnson said in the Wall Street Journal, "When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in trouble.[9]"

In the research on Darwin’s finches the term natural selection has been used as a substitute for Darwinian evolution. However, Darwin clearly proposed that a change sufficient to create a new species was possible. In his day a substantial change in characteristics may have been essential criteria but in the age of Mendelian genetics and DNA splicing a new species must exhibit new DNA and chromosomal structure. This evidence is completely lacking. 

The error in the Darwinist thinking is one of extrapolation.  A cow jumps over a two-foot fence. From this you cannot deduce from that that a cow can jump over the moon. Nonsense! The cow's muscle power is absurdly inadequate to propel it to the moon. As we have seen the power of natural selection can make minor modifications to one aspect of its physiology. But, it is absurdly inadequate to change the DNA that allows reproduction possible. The general public's lack of biological knowledge causes them not to appreciate the extrapolation problem and thus the error in the Darwinist conclusion. Rather than admit that there is no finch evidence for transpeciation Darwinists, such as Grant and Weiner, have substituted subspeciation.   Bait and switch is not a scientific principle.

Now in Genesis Chapter 1, the text clearly states that everything brings forth "after its own kind".  Surely, if fish produce fish and only fish and cattle produce cattle and only cattle then finches produce finches and only finches. So subspeciation is no problem for Genesis. If Darwinism is the natural selection that produces subspeciation in finches - finches that reproduce more finches - then it agrees with Genesis 1. Statements that claim that Darwinism refutes Genesis 1 then are simply false. If, however, Darwinism means fish evolve into cattle which evolve into apes which evolve into humans then the natural selection of finches into finches is moot.  Darwinists must then admit that it is "other" evidence that "proves" evolution. But these other mechanisms have no results that demonstrate their effectiveness and so do not demonstrated the Bible is disproved.  Darwinists mechanisms are either effective and agree with the Bible or are ineffective. Am I to be impressed by these claims?

References

[1] http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1178

[2] Peter R. Grant, "Natural Selection and Darwin's Finches," Scientific American, October 1991, p. 82-87.

[3] Peter R. Grant, Op.cit., pp. 127–139.

[4] James L. Patton, "Genetical processes in the Galapagos," Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. 21, 1984, pp. 91-111; Nancy Jo, "Karyotypic Analysis of Darwin's Finches," in R.I Bowman, M. Berson, A.E. Leviton (editors), Patterns of Evolution in Galapagos Organisms, CA: Pacific Division, AAAS, San Francisco, 1983, pp. 201-217.

[5] A. Sato, C. O'huigin, F. Figueroa, P.R. Grant, B.R. Grant, H. Tichy, J. Klein, "Phylogeny of Darwin's finches as revealed by mtDNA sequences", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 96, Issue 9, 27 April 1999, p. 5101-5106.

[6] Michaela Hau, Martin Wikelski, "Darwin's Finches," Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, 2000, ğ.els.net.

[7] Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch, New York: Vintage Books, 1994, p. 9.

[8] Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, Regnery Publishing Inc., 2000, pp. 173-174.

[9] Phillip E. Johnson, "The Church of Darwin" The Wall Street Journal, 16 August 1999.

DARWINISM VERSUS SCIENCE

Is Materialism Falsified?

Dr. Thomas Nagel’s newest book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False¹ is causing Darwinists nightmares. The cat is out of the bag. He states in his new book “It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection.”  Translation: Life is no accident. It cannot be explained by matter and energy alone.

This statement would not be surprising if it came from an intelligent design advocate. However, it is coming from an atheist. Not just any old atheist but a professor. Not just a professor but a 75-year-old respected philosophy professor at New York State University. The scientific evidence is so overwhelming it is even convincing people whose lives show a persevering dedication to denying it.

Nagel's most challenging statements is,  "What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a non-negligible probability of being true." The probability that life is self-generated from chemistry is zero. Ask a scientist to produce life from his laboratory with the most sophisticated equipment and he will respond that it is not yet possible. So on what grounds is the Darwinian claim made that life can arise spontaneously? It appears that such claims are based on hope more than reality.

So why is Nagel edging away from evolution? “In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture from a very different direction … by the defenders of intelligent design." He is referring to people like Dr. Behe and Dr Stephan Meyers. Though their scientific institute is a small one it has incurred the wrath of many Darwinists. Nagel admits, "Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair." Why would scientists 'who only seek the truth' unfairly discount seriously researched theories? Well, that is the question!

Responses by Darwinists to Nagel is interesting. Science philosopher Elliott Sober wrote, "If Nagel is right, our descendants will look back on him as a prophet—a prophet whom naysayers such as me were unable to recognize.2" Is this not an admission that Sober fears being judged as a stoner of scientific prophets? And so he should. But, if intelligent design can be dismissed as religion, can Sober's views not also be dismissed as anti-religion?

John Dupré, from the University of Exeter states, "The title of the book, however, all too readily interpreted as announcing the falsity of Darwinism, will certainly lend comfort (and sell a lot of copies) to the religious enemies of Darwinism.3" But why should true scientists care if any of their discoveries comfort religion as a by-product. Indeed, this statement clearly implies that Darwinism is primarily a defense against religion and secondarily it is concerned about truth.

Simon Blackburn fears Nagel is giving aid to the enemy creationists: “There is charm to reading a philosopher who confesses to finding things bewildering. But I regret the appearance of this book. It will only bring comfort to creationists and fans of ‘intelligent design’, who will not be too bothered about the difference between their divine architect and Nagel’s natural providence.4" Again there is a contrast between the divine architecture and natural providence - natural or supernatural - a conflict which is in nature theological not scientific.  

Science prides itself in its open-mindedness and pure motivation - we go where the evidence takes us and we change our minds when the evidence demands it. Then scientists should not be afraid to examine the obvious - life formation and operation are beyond any plausible accidental origin (statistics). Life is organized. It is organized by the coded information on the DNA (observation). It is not organized by the chemistry. Coded information comes from intelligence (all known codes are intelligently derived). Thus life had an intelligent designer. The lack of explanation for coded information in Darwinian thought is devastating to its whole position.

In Darwinian thinking nothing God does may be explained by the supernatural. It must ultimately be explained by something non-supernatural. Thus the purpose of science is to explain everything without God rather than seek the truth - the truth is now secondary to discomforting religion.

References

1. Nagel, T., Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Most Certainly False, Oxford University Press, 2012.
2. Sober. E., Remarkable Facts. Ending Science As We Know It, http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.6/elliott_sober_thomas_nagel_mind_cosmos.php, November 2012. 
3. Dupré, J., Thomas Nagel, http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/35163-mind-and-cosmos-why-the-materialist-neo-darwinian-conception-of-nature-is-almost-certainly-false/, 29 November 2012. 
4. Blackburn, S., Thomas Nagel: a philosopher who confesses to finding things bewildering, http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2012/11/thomas-nagel-philosopher-who-confesses-finding-things-bewildering, 8 November 2012.

THEISTIC DARWINISM AND HUGH ROSS

Theistic Darwinism and Apologetics

Dr Hugh Ross is a Christian scientist, evangelist and apologist. He runs a ministry called 'Reason to Believe'. He talks to many scientists who accept standard opinions in science and thus accepts the Big Bang. In fact, he uses the Big Bang as an entry into their thinking as the Big Bang proves there was a beginning. Ordinarily I let other people run their ministries their way. If he can lead them to Christ then Christ can deal with these scientists and their evolution theories. In Ross's case I will make an exception.

Ross actively sides with unbelieving scientists and chides creationists for their scientific theories as well as biblical belief in a six-day creation. God did not give him this responsibility. Some scientists see us as fundamentalists and they have a deep prejudice there. Ross and his colleagues should not pick up this prejudice to advance their ministry but they do. In his book, The Fingerprint of God, Ross makes the point that the universe though billions of years old had a beginning and thus there is a God. Then Ross tries to deal with creationist arguments that the world is young [H. Ross, Fingerprint of God, p.155] .

Continental Erosion

Measurements of continental erosion show a loss of .05 millimeters per year. This is enough to put all the rock above sea level into the oceans in only 16 million years. The Grand Canyon, we can see that there is pre-Cambrian rocks older than 500 million years old sitting on the bottom underneath the sedimentary formation. Cambrian rocks, 500 million years old sit on top of these rocks. Kaibob limestone sits near the top, dated to 250 million years old. So how is it that these formations last more than 16 million years? How is it after 25 cycles of continental erosion they are still standing undisturbed without any sign of erosion?

Well Ross claims we fail to grasp the other land building activities like coral reefs and volcanoes that are building up continents at the same time they are eroding. Dr John Morris, a geology creationist, in his book The Young Earth [John D. Morris, The Young Earth, p. 88] states, "The uniformitarian may take solace in the proposal that the continents are still rising and volcanoes are continually erupting, thereby replacing the the volume being displaced and keeping pace with erosion. But that does not address the problem that the surface at the time of the uplift is still the surface, and erosion has hardly touched it. Nor does it account for the present-day existence of so much ancient sedimentary rock." It seems Morris grasps Ross' view quite well.

So imagine that 500 million years ago some Cambrian rock was laid down. Later strata from later eras are laid down on top. Which of these layers get eroded every 16 million years? Suppose we call a continent's weight a glob. Only if the glob each and every 16 million years is made up entirely of additional volcanic rock alone - no fossiliferous rock - can the fossiliferous rock remain untouched until the present time. This, of course is not how erosion works and this is Morris's point. The pattern of rock deposition and continuance does not fit into the measured erosion rate. Ross's dismissal is superficial.

Earth's Magnetic Field

If you run a current through a solenoid a magnetic field will be formed running through the centre, out the top and then arching back around the outside to complete the cycle. Remove the current and the magnetic field decays. It gives back the energy it took to create it. Creationists believe that the Earth's magnetic field is an original feature. The field is decaying into electrical energy as in the lab. In the lab the curve produced by a decaying magnetic field is a negative exponential (which has a half-life). The earth's magnetic field data also shows a negative exponential curve with a 1400-year half life. This cannot be sustained for billions of years into the past.

The problem says Ross is that the curve is sinusoidal - it goes up and down like a sine wave. There is a dynamo that provides the energy to sustain this. However, the magnetic field data never shows the curve has gone up. Ross thinks it will increase some time in the future. But is the magnetic field caused by a dynamo? There is no proof of this. Thus Ross is saying without supporting data that the dynamo theory is true and contradicts the magnetic field decay. Yes, and if the magnetic decay theory is true the dynamo theory must be wrong. So what? Well, since the Earth IS old and the magnetic field theory predicts a young Earth it must be wrong and therefore the Earth is OLD. Yes, but this argument begs the question - it was already ASSUMED the Earth was old to begin with. What does that prove?

Conclusion

I said I make an exception for Ross as an apologist. He puts the discussion of creationist thinking under the heading, "Bogus evidences for a young universe." Well, the only thing that is bogus here is the pretense that  Ross has a knowledgeable understanding of the science involved. He thinks that his contemptuous attitude is a valid substitute for good science. Creationists are used to this attitude from unbelievers but Ross stands on his Christian faith as he presents this material. Does this fall into "Love thy neighbour as thyself?" You be the judge.

DARWINISM FAILS AGAIN!

You might wonder, if biological chemistry that forms the basis for life is so complex and yet so marvellously effective at achieving its ends, why does not everybody see that it is the product of intelligent design? How can a host of academic minds be convinced of the absurd point of view that it all happened through a random non-purposeful process lacking in any form of intelligence? Dr Richard Lumsden was one of those academics He attained not only professorship at Tulane University, but also Dean of the Graduate School.

One year in the last lecture of a spring semester he deviated from his curriculum to do a lecture on the origin of life. As a Professor of Microbiology he had some authority in the field. In this lecture he mentioned Genesis as an alternate explanation to evolution. He did this with all "the mockery, sarcasm and cynicism" he could muster. You see he "had been mad at God for a long time..." So when he got an opportunity, he let God have it.

What do you think God did to him? Did he drop a rock from Heaven. I'll bet there were Christian students who were humiliated by his lecture. They may well have felt God was justified in dropping such a rock on his pointed little head. Not a chance. It was far more fun to pluck him from the devil's hands with the information held inside his own brain!

At the end of the lecture a student with a microbiology major, an anatomy major and a statistics minor said she had some questions. The Professor gladly invited her over to his office. She brought a legal pad full of questions and a stack of reference books. She asked about the diseases she had seen in anatomy class caused by mutations and asked how, when so many diseases and syndromes were caused by mutations, they could be a mechanism for a positive built-up of millions of mutations needed to transform one species into another species. He answered as best he could.

After that the student asked about the chemistry of the origin of life. In the microbiology course she had taken, the equations showed how water plus proteins yielded amino acids but in his evolutionary lecture he had stated that amino acids and water became proteins. Now which of these two is true? Well he really could not sidestep that one. On and on these questions went for over 3 hours. At the end the student arose and thanked the professor for all his clarifications. She was edified. The problem was the professor had listen to his own voice give all these answers to her questions and really could not accept his own answers as reasonable never mind true. His faith in the theory of evolution started to unravel. How could he believe in a theory whose defence he could not believe himself.

But wait God was not finished yet. His daughter went to university and received Christ there. She started going to church, to prayer meeting and to Bible study. Finally, his wife said that he had to speak to her. Well, that conversation turned into an invitation to come to hear the special speaker that Sunday morning. He went expecting the usual stereotypical religious stuff that he called mythology. Yet despite his resistance he too accepted Christ. I don't know whether there was more rejoicing or laughter in Heaven that day.

Today Dr Richard Lumsden explains to audiences how he and his arrogance were converted and how his evolutionary convictions were the product of persuasion in school long before he had the critical faculties to challenge it. You can listen to him on Youtube -http://youtu.be/s91-ABJ49ho

So just how good is Darwinism as a science, once you take away the advantage of educating children before they can reply intelligently? Apparently, it has little to commend it if a Darwinist professor's own poor answers are good enough to unpersuade him.

Alan Montgomery