IVP have now published their latest catalogue advertising the book edited by Norman Nevin
Should Christians Embrace Evolution?
Andrew Halloway has a couple of news items of note on the Lifebite website. Firstly Andrew responds to the claim that the language of Genesis does not indicate God's direct creation from nothing, then he comments on Richard Dawkins refusal to debate intelligent design proponent Steve Meyer following the publication of his new book.
God not the Creator, Says theologian --- Dawkins Dodges Design Debate
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Thursday, 22 October 2009
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Should Christians Embrace Evolution? – new book edited by leading geneticist
There is a new book coming out in November Should Christians Embrace Evolution? published by IVP edited by Norman C Nevin
From Amazon.co.uk
I picked this link up from Pandas Thumb it may be a bit out of date – about Norman Nevin
“Professor Norman Nevin: Norman C. Nevin is Professor of Medical Genetics, Queen’s University of Belfast and Head of the Northern Regional Genetics Service. He has held the positions of secretary, vice-president and president of the UK Clinical Genetics Society as well as serving on various national and international committees notably the Human Genetics Advisory Commission. He is a member of the European Concerted Action for congenital abnormalities. Professor Nevin was a founder member of the UK Gene Therapy Advisory Committee (GTAC) and is currently its’ chairman. His research interests have resulted in over 300 peer reviewed publications on various aspects of genetics, especially single gene disorders and congenital abnormalities.”
David Anderson has posted the Preface online
“In the face of the new atheists’ claim that evolution has rendered faith utterly redundant there is a flood tide arising that demands that Christians must embrace evolution or acknowledge that they are opposed to science. This book believes that this is a false premise. It is written to set out a clear theological framework on the relevant issues and to confront the questions that this gives rise to. It is written with a compelling conviction that science and faith are not in opposition. It is written by theologians who are committed to the authority of Scripture and to the exercise of careful exegesis. It is written by scientists who are fully persuaded of the importance of rigorous scientific investigation but who are dissatisfied with the arbitrary exclusion of possible conclusions and the failure to follow the evidence wherever it leads. This is not written for a select readership that already has expert knowledge of the subjects. It is written for ordinary men and women, who have the capacity to weigh the information, seek further clarification and draw their own conclusions.”
From Amazon.co.uk
I picked this link up from Pandas Thumb it may be a bit out of date – about Norman Nevin
“Professor Norman Nevin: Norman C. Nevin is Professor of Medical Genetics, Queen’s University of Belfast and Head of the Northern Regional Genetics Service. He has held the positions of secretary, vice-president and president of the UK Clinical Genetics Society as well as serving on various national and international committees notably the Human Genetics Advisory Commission. He is a member of the European Concerted Action for congenital abnormalities. Professor Nevin was a founder member of the UK Gene Therapy Advisory Committee (GTAC) and is currently its’ chairman. His research interests have resulted in over 300 peer reviewed publications on various aspects of genetics, especially single gene disorders and congenital abnormalities.”
David Anderson has posted the Preface online
“In the face of the new atheists’ claim that evolution has rendered faith utterly redundant there is a flood tide arising that demands that Christians must embrace evolution or acknowledge that they are opposed to science. This book believes that this is a false premise. It is written to set out a clear theological framework on the relevant issues and to confront the questions that this gives rise to. It is written with a compelling conviction that science and faith are not in opposition. It is written by theologians who are committed to the authority of Scripture and to the exercise of careful exegesis. It is written by scientists who are fully persuaded of the importance of rigorous scientific investigation but who are dissatisfied with the arbitrary exclusion of possible conclusions and the failure to follow the evidence wherever it leads. This is not written for a select readership that already has expert knowledge of the subjects. It is written for ordinary men and women, who have the capacity to weigh the information, seek further clarification and draw their own conclusions.”
‘God is not the Creator’, claims academic
The Daily Telegraph has reported the work of a Dutch academic who claims the first verse of the Bible has been wrongly translated. Why we should believe a 21st century academic over traditional biblical teaching, where the writers were understood the Hebrew language much better than westerners do, I don’t know.
The paper reports Prof Ellen Van Wolde as claiming that the Hebrew verb "bara", does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate". The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth" according to her.
There is incidentally a lot of harmony with this view and pagan beliefs, where Plato’s demiurge was for instance said to have created the world out of a pre existing chaos. Traditional scholars consider that Genesis was written in a style by Moses that was diametrically opposed to the beliefs of the pagan nations that surrounded Israel at the time, thus giving ‘clear blue water’ between the work of the one true God, and the gods the other nations considered to be divine. Genesis presents an ordered creation spoken into existence at God’s direct command.
Old Testament scholar Alistair McKitterick writes; “The word 'bara' certainly does mean create, if you read it in the context of the rest of the Bible. There is a perfectly good Hebrew word for 'to divide', namely the Hiphil form of the verb 'badal', which occurs a number of times in the first chapter of Genesis. What Professor Van Wolde seems to be doing is to take the Ancient Near Eastern myths and try to squeeze the Genesis account into conformity with them. But if the only way you can do this is to distort the Genesis account, then it is a pretty good sign that the endeavour is doomed to fail.
Genesis is different to the ANE accounts. God is certainly depicted as creating everything from nothing in the first verse, and that is the kind of thing that the Biblical God does. It is much better practice to read Genesis 1 in light of John 1, where we read that through God the Logos 'all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.'
If Prof Van Wolde were interested in the Biblical teaching about creation then she should have turned to the rest of the Bible to help her understand the meanings of such words, rather than to a collection of polytheistic texts. Polytheism will forever have a problem with creation because they will always have difficulty answering the important question 'which god came first?' and 'which god made the other gods?' The Bible has no such difficulties; it is the consistent teaching of the whole of Scripture that the one holy Lord God made all things.”
Source: Richard Alleyne, God is not the Creator, claims academic, Daily Telegraph, 8th October 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6274502/God-is-not-the-Creator-claims-academic.html
The paper reports Prof Ellen Van Wolde as claiming that the Hebrew verb "bara", does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate". The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth" according to her.
There is incidentally a lot of harmony with this view and pagan beliefs, where Plato’s demiurge was for instance said to have created the world out of a pre existing chaos. Traditional scholars consider that Genesis was written in a style by Moses that was diametrically opposed to the beliefs of the pagan nations that surrounded Israel at the time, thus giving ‘clear blue water’ between the work of the one true God, and the gods the other nations considered to be divine. Genesis presents an ordered creation spoken into existence at God’s direct command.
Old Testament scholar Alistair McKitterick writes; “The word 'bara' certainly does mean create, if you read it in the context of the rest of the Bible. There is a perfectly good Hebrew word for 'to divide', namely the Hiphil form of the verb 'badal', which occurs a number of times in the first chapter of Genesis. What Professor Van Wolde seems to be doing is to take the Ancient Near Eastern myths and try to squeeze the Genesis account into conformity with them. But if the only way you can do this is to distort the Genesis account, then it is a pretty good sign that the endeavour is doomed to fail.
Genesis is different to the ANE accounts. God is certainly depicted as creating everything from nothing in the first verse, and that is the kind of thing that the Biblical God does. It is much better practice to read Genesis 1 in light of John 1, where we read that through God the Logos 'all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.'
If Prof Van Wolde were interested in the Biblical teaching about creation then she should have turned to the rest of the Bible to help her understand the meanings of such words, rather than to a collection of polytheistic texts. Polytheism will forever have a problem with creation because they will always have difficulty answering the important question 'which god came first?' and 'which god made the other gods?' The Bible has no such difficulties; it is the consistent teaching of the whole of Scripture that the one holy Lord God made all things.”
Source: Richard Alleyne, God is not the Creator, claims academic, Daily Telegraph, 8th October 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6274502/God-is-not-the-Creator-claims-academic.html
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Mega-hyped 'Missing Link' quietly dropped
Back in May the BBC trumpeted its ‘missing link’ fossil documentary as “the exclusive story behind a scientific discovery that could revolutionise our understanding of human evolution” – but already the ‘Ida’ fossil is being relegated to the backwaters of evolutionary discussion.
The flagship BBC1 60-minute documentary ‘Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor: The Link’, presented by David Attenborough, was shamelessly promoted as revealing a devastating discovery for evolution-doubters.
Dr Jørn Hurum, leader of the scientists analysing the lemur-like fossil, confidently asserted: “This is the first link to all humans.” The media jumped on the evolution bandwagon, proclaiming Ida as a ‘ground-breaking’ find.
Before even having seen the programme, I predicted in a report on Lifebite that once all the hoopla had died down, Ida may well turn out to be a lame duck. I said: “Be wary of the media when you see TV programmes or headlines that deal with evolution – someone might well be making a monkey out of you.”
On the eve of the broadcast, some commentators were even then beginning to have qualms about the claims for Ida. Times science writer Mark Henderson said: “I am baffled as to how they [the scientists] could stress the significance of this fossil without undertaking the requisite research to support their hypothesis.”
In July, only two months after the headline-hitting documentary, America’s leading science journal, Scientific American, let the cat out of the bag.
In ‘Weak Link: Fossil Darwinius has its 15 minutes: Skepticism about a fossil cast as a missing link in human ancestry’ (Scientific American, July 21, 2009), Kate Wong described the original hype: “In an elaborate public relations campaign in which the release of a website, a book and a documentary on the History Channel were timed to coincide with the publication of the scientific paper describing her… Ida’s significance was described in no uncertain terms as the missing link between us humans and our primate kin. In news reports, team members called her ‘the eighth wonder of the world,’ ‘the Holy Grail’ and ‘a Rosetta Stone’.
“The orchestration paid off, as Ida graced the front page of countless newspapers and made appearances on the morning (and evening) news programmes… And Google incorporated her image into its logo on the main search page for a day.”
Wong also described the subsequent scientific downgrading of Ida: “Critics concur that Ida is an adapiform, but they dispute the alleged ties to anthropoids [the line leading to humans]. Robert Martin of the Field Museum in Chicago charges that some of the traits used to align Ida with the anthropoids do not in fact support such a relationship. Fusion of the lower jaw, for instance, is not present in the earliest unequivocal anthropoids, suggesting that it was not an ancestral feature of this group…
“Martin further notes that Ida also lacks a defining feature of the anthropoids: a bony wall at the back of the eye socket. ‘I am utterly convinced that Darwinius [Ida] has nothing whatsoever to do with the origin of higher primates,’ he declares.”
In other words, the so-called great missing link in human evolution is no more. But will BBC1 be broadcasting an hour-long documentary to rectify their mistake and let the public know that what was proclaimed as evidence of human evolution is no such thing? Will they heck.
As I said in my article in May: “Anyone who keeps a critical eye on the overblown claims of evolutionists has been here before. It’s certainly not the first time that a so-called ‘missing link’ has been hyped to the media as the holy grail of evolution, only later to be quietly debunked in the back corridors of academia away from the media’s prying eyes.”
The real story that the media should be reporting is that scientists rushed prematurely into publicising a ‘missing link’ to humans because they are desperate for proof of evolution, and came a cropper – yet again. Perhaps they need the PR to keep their evolution research budget fed, and perhaps the TV channels and newspapers are just too eager for evidence to support their own liberal, atheistic opinions.
Meanwhile, truly ground-breaking evidence for the Intelligent Design (ID) behind life is ignored by both scientists and the media.
Leading ID theorist Dr Steve Meyer has a new book out called ‘Signature in the Cell’ which is described by a review in The American Spectator as “a defining work in the discussion of life’s origins and the question of whether life is a product of unthinking matter or of an intelligent mind. For those who disagree with ID, the powerful case Meyer presents cannot be ignored in any honest debate.”
The review explains that the chance of life arising by itself, with no input from a Designer, is less than the chance of accidentally finding one atom in the entire galaxy: “It has been calculated that the mathematical chance of producing a functional protein of a modest length of 150 amino acids long, is about one in 1074. Since the number of atoms in our galaxy may be estimated to be 1065, it would be a billion times easier to find a single marked atom in the Milky Way by a completely random search than to produce functional proteins 150 amino acids long by chance.
“Historically, those advocating that life could arise from random combinations of molecules typically have invoked lengthy time periods that would permit such unlikely results to occur. In the 1950s, a biochemist quoted by Meyer explained that, ‘Time is in fact the hero of the plot…Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain.’
“Well, no. Life on earth, according to most scientists, developed within the first billion years or so after earth’s formation. A billion years (nine zeros) seems like a long time, but any scenario relying on chance is hopelessly, pathetically, impossibly inadequate when confronted with probabilities such as 1 out of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (74 zeros for the modest protein just mentioned).”
And that’s just for one protein. There are many more needed for life to arise, and they must all work together in an extremely complex symphony to produce a cell with its own encoded information and mechanisms for reproducing itself. All by chance. All before evolution can even begin to have any influence on life.
What will it take for our media to begin to give an equal hearing to scientists who have a more plausible theory about life’s origin?
By Andrew Halloway - first published at www.lifebite.co.uk
The flagship BBC1 60-minute documentary ‘Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor: The Link’, presented by David Attenborough, was shamelessly promoted as revealing a devastating discovery for evolution-doubters.
Dr Jørn Hurum, leader of the scientists analysing the lemur-like fossil, confidently asserted: “This is the first link to all humans.” The media jumped on the evolution bandwagon, proclaiming Ida as a ‘ground-breaking’ find.
Before even having seen the programme, I predicted in a report on Lifebite that once all the hoopla had died down, Ida may well turn out to be a lame duck. I said: “Be wary of the media when you see TV programmes or headlines that deal with evolution – someone might well be making a monkey out of you.”
On the eve of the broadcast, some commentators were even then beginning to have qualms about the claims for Ida. Times science writer Mark Henderson said: “I am baffled as to how they [the scientists] could stress the significance of this fossil without undertaking the requisite research to support their hypothesis.”
In July, only two months after the headline-hitting documentary, America’s leading science journal, Scientific American, let the cat out of the bag.
In ‘Weak Link: Fossil Darwinius has its 15 minutes: Skepticism about a fossil cast as a missing link in human ancestry’ (Scientific American, July 21, 2009), Kate Wong described the original hype: “In an elaborate public relations campaign in which the release of a website, a book and a documentary on the History Channel were timed to coincide with the publication of the scientific paper describing her… Ida’s significance was described in no uncertain terms as the missing link between us humans and our primate kin. In news reports, team members called her ‘the eighth wonder of the world,’ ‘the Holy Grail’ and ‘a Rosetta Stone’.
“The orchestration paid off, as Ida graced the front page of countless newspapers and made appearances on the morning (and evening) news programmes… And Google incorporated her image into its logo on the main search page for a day.”
Wong also described the subsequent scientific downgrading of Ida: “Critics concur that Ida is an adapiform, but they dispute the alleged ties to anthropoids [the line leading to humans]. Robert Martin of the Field Museum in Chicago charges that some of the traits used to align Ida with the anthropoids do not in fact support such a relationship. Fusion of the lower jaw, for instance, is not present in the earliest unequivocal anthropoids, suggesting that it was not an ancestral feature of this group…
“Martin further notes that Ida also lacks a defining feature of the anthropoids: a bony wall at the back of the eye socket. ‘I am utterly convinced that Darwinius [Ida] has nothing whatsoever to do with the origin of higher primates,’ he declares.”
In other words, the so-called great missing link in human evolution is no more. But will BBC1 be broadcasting an hour-long documentary to rectify their mistake and let the public know that what was proclaimed as evidence of human evolution is no such thing? Will they heck.
As I said in my article in May: “Anyone who keeps a critical eye on the overblown claims of evolutionists has been here before. It’s certainly not the first time that a so-called ‘missing link’ has been hyped to the media as the holy grail of evolution, only later to be quietly debunked in the back corridors of academia away from the media’s prying eyes.”
The real story that the media should be reporting is that scientists rushed prematurely into publicising a ‘missing link’ to humans because they are desperate for proof of evolution, and came a cropper – yet again. Perhaps they need the PR to keep their evolution research budget fed, and perhaps the TV channels and newspapers are just too eager for evidence to support their own liberal, atheistic opinions.
Meanwhile, truly ground-breaking evidence for the Intelligent Design (ID) behind life is ignored by both scientists and the media.
Leading ID theorist Dr Steve Meyer has a new book out called ‘Signature in the Cell’ which is described by a review in The American Spectator as “a defining work in the discussion of life’s origins and the question of whether life is a product of unthinking matter or of an intelligent mind. For those who disagree with ID, the powerful case Meyer presents cannot be ignored in any honest debate.”
The review explains that the chance of life arising by itself, with no input from a Designer, is less than the chance of accidentally finding one atom in the entire galaxy: “It has been calculated that the mathematical chance of producing a functional protein of a modest length of 150 amino acids long, is about one in 1074. Since the number of atoms in our galaxy may be estimated to be 1065, it would be a billion times easier to find a single marked atom in the Milky Way by a completely random search than to produce functional proteins 150 amino acids long by chance.
“Historically, those advocating that life could arise from random combinations of molecules typically have invoked lengthy time periods that would permit such unlikely results to occur. In the 1950s, a biochemist quoted by Meyer explained that, ‘Time is in fact the hero of the plot…Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain.’
“Well, no. Life on earth, according to most scientists, developed within the first billion years or so after earth’s formation. A billion years (nine zeros) seems like a long time, but any scenario relying on chance is hopelessly, pathetically, impossibly inadequate when confronted with probabilities such as 1 out of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (74 zeros for the modest protein just mentioned).”
And that’s just for one protein. There are many more needed for life to arise, and they must all work together in an extremely complex symphony to produce a cell with its own encoded information and mechanisms for reproducing itself. All by chance. All before evolution can even begin to have any influence on life.
What will it take for our media to begin to give an equal hearing to scientists who have a more plausible theory about life’s origin?
By Andrew Halloway - first published at www.lifebite.co.uk
Saturday, 12 September 2009
Have we evolved to believe in God ?
The Sunday Times, September 6, 2009, 'We are born to believe in God' by Jonathan Leake and Andrew Sniderman
Apparently: "The idea has emerged from studies of the way children’s brains develop and of the workings of the brain during religious experiences. They suggest that during evolution groups of humans with religious tendencies began to benefit from their beliefs, perhaps because they tended to work together better and so stood a greater chance of survival."
Similar arguments have been made for belief in design which seems hard wired into children, even those of atheistic parents. But there is a gapping hole in this argument for evolution. It is pertintent to ask. 'If I have evolved to believe I have not evolved, then does not evolution produce in me false beliefs? In which case how can I know I have evolved?
Science clearly works best in the context that there is a creator God who has brought order to nature.
Andrew Sibley
Apparently: "The idea has emerged from studies of the way children’s brains develop and of the workings of the brain during religious experiences. They suggest that during evolution groups of humans with religious tendencies began to benefit from their beliefs, perhaps because they tended to work together better and so stood a greater chance of survival."
Similar arguments have been made for belief in design which seems hard wired into children, even those of atheistic parents. But there is a gapping hole in this argument for evolution. It is pertintent to ask. 'If I have evolved to believe I have not evolved, then does not evolution produce in me false beliefs? In which case how can I know I have evolved?
Science clearly works best in the context that there is a creator God who has brought order to nature.
Andrew Sibley
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Realism and Climate Change
Mike Hulme asks us to become more realistic about climate change. Instead of seeking to eradicate it we need to come to terms with it.
Mike Hulme in the New Scientist
"... they will not "solve" climate change. This does not imply passivity in the face of change, however. Nor does it allow us to deny that our actions on this planet are changing the climate. But it does suggest that making climate control our number one political priority might not be the most fruitful way of using the idea of climate change.
The world's climates will keep on changing, with human influences now inextricably entangled with those of nature. So too will the idea of climate change keep changing as we find new ways of using it to meet our needs. We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise these stories in support of our projects. Whereas a modernist reading of climate may once have regarded it as merely a physical condition for human action, we must now come to terms with climate change operating simultaneously as an overlying, but more fluid, imaginative condition of human existence."
Posted by Andrew Sibley
Mike Hulme in the New Scientist
"... they will not "solve" climate change. This does not imply passivity in the face of change, however. Nor does it allow us to deny that our actions on this planet are changing the climate. But it does suggest that making climate control our number one political priority might not be the most fruitful way of using the idea of climate change.
The world's climates will keep on changing, with human influences now inextricably entangled with those of nature. So too will the idea of climate change keep changing as we find new ways of using it to meet our needs. We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise these stories in support of our projects. Whereas a modernist reading of climate may once have regarded it as merely a physical condition for human action, we must now come to terms with climate change operating simultaneously as an overlying, but more fluid, imaginative condition of human existence."
Posted by Andrew Sibley
Sunday, 30 August 2009
The Seen and Unseen in Science and Theology
Another interesting paper I have come across recently was published by the American Scientific Affiliation. Hyung S. Choi , 'Knowledge of the Unseen: A New Vision for Science and Religion Dialogue', Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 53.2 (June 2001): 96-101.
http://www.asa3.org/asa/pscf/2001/pscf6-01choi.html
http://www.asa3.org/asa/pscf/2001/pscf6-01choi.html
A few quotes:
"While contemporary physics and cosmology take seriously the knowledge of invisible realities, the discussion of the unseen in religion has been largely neglected in the recent science-and-religion discussion. Neglecting the issue in theology is ultimately self- defeating since God is considered the Unseen. In light of contemporary understanding of the unseen in science, we contend that that there are significant parallels between scientific and theological claims concerning the unseen. The epistemic distinction between the seen and the unseen does not necessarily imply the ontological demarcation between the natural and the supernatural. New heuristic frameworks such as a multi- dimensional model are suggested for more holistic and dynamical understanding of reality that includes both the seen and the unseen."
"In hindsight, it is an irony that while modernity in its positivistic spirit started out with the notion that the reality perceived by our senses is the only knowable reality there is, we now end up with the idea that the true nature of physical reality is quite different from what we experience through our senses. The legend of the tangibility of matter, or what may be called "the matter myth," which served as the basis for the certainty of knowledge, was lost."
"Here, within science, were raised the problem of reality (an ontological problem), issues of the limits of human knowledge (an epistemological problem), and the problem of testability (a methodological problem). Relativity and quantum physics, which serve as the pillars of contemporary science, and more recently chaos theory, are now presenting us with a radically new physical view of the world in which positivistic, deterministic, and materialistic philosophies no longer have secure places. They present us with deeper, greater, and more mysterious aspects of nature."
Andrew Sibley
Friday, 28 August 2009
Humanists try to Close Christian Zoo
It seems the British Humanist Association (BHA) has become a self-appointed arbiter of science. In criticising a Christian-owned zoo this week, it seems to be aping Richard Dawkins in not only promoting atheism but also pontificating on what is or is not good science.
Mind you, it’s got ‘previous’ on this issue, having waded into scientific arguments on many occasions. And, true to form, it is also trying to squash opposition to evolution, instead of standing for the ‘free thinking’ it claims to embrace.
The BHA says Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxhall, North Somerset, is bad for science, and has been urging tourism boards to boycott the zoo and the local authority to revoke its licence. Of course, the BHA’s concern for good science is a cloak for its opposition to creationism. When else do you ever see the BHA standing up for good science? Answer: only when creationism or Intelligent Design theory need a good kicking. Why? Because such unorthodox science threatens the atheistic view of life that the BHA espouses. It can stomach no opposition.
Signs at the zoo suggest that the "three great people groups" of the world may be descendants of Noah – which a literal reading of the Bible would certainly support. Another sign says animal predation occurred after "man rebelled against God". Now, such views might be typical of traditional Young Earth Creationism (YEC), but the website and two spokespeople for the zoo do say that they view “the natural world around us as a product of both God and evolution”.
A closer look at their website indicates they accept a limited form of evolution and believe that the world may be much older than the typical YEC position of less than 10,000 years. As a spokesperson says, "Although technically creationists, we do not hold the stereotypical creationist views that the world was created in 6,000 years and there is no evolution."
So we are not dealing here with the ultra-traditional creationism that the BHA seems to want to brand this zoo as espousing. But that is no matter to the BHA – any religious view on life must be suppressed. The BHA’s criticism is an attack not only on creationism but on freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
BHA education officer Paul Pettinger says, "We're very concerned because it will undermine education and the teaching of science." First, it’s ridiculous that one small zoo could undermine education as a whole, and second it certainly doesn’t undermine the teaching of science itself – only the teaching of a rigid Darwinian view of evolution. But of course, the BHA needs evolution to reign supreme in order to shore up its atheistic beliefs.
The zoo’s website says that scientists are afraid to talk about "design" in the natural world, and the zoo’s owner Anthony Bush says, "There's a lot of people who believe in Genesis who don't want to come out of the woodwork, but they don't want to come out of the closet because of the thought police."
Well, it’s clear why when the Inquisitors of the BHA come knocking on your door if you cast the slightest doubt on Darwinism.
Bush, a former Evangelical preacher, says his zoo actually presents a variety of views, only one of which is creationist. "I think God created life. I have no idea when," he adds.
One tourism group, Visit England, avoided the issue by pointing out that it only checks a zoo’s visitor satisfaction rating and has no opinion on content. On that score, Noah’s Ark Zoo is clearly a winner. Despite only having 100 animals, it is visited by 120,000 people every year, including members of school parties, yet only gets about ten complaints per year. As Noah's Ark research assistant Jon Woodwood says, "Clearly the public do not share the British Humanist viewpoint.''
BHA director of education and public affairs Andrew Copson also accuses the zoo of deceiving people about its creationist views: ''We believe Noah's Ark Farm Zoo misleads the public by not being open about its creationist agenda in its promotional activities.”
This is clearly untrue as the zoo website has a whole section on creationism and is completely open about its stance. And as Jon Woodwood points out, the zoo is actually named after the biblical Noah’s Ark – might that not be a big clue as to its viewpoint?!
As for undermining science education… ''Our education policy is purely based around the National Curriculum. We are offering our visitors the chance to look at the evolution/creation debate. As it is a free country, that is within our right. Contrary to a small minority of people's claims we do not teach false science.
''This is clearly shown within the zoo, with one exhibition talking about Darwin and another offering another point of view.”
Fortunately the director of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Miranda Stevenson, is perceptive: ''I find it extraordinary that an organisation that I thought promotes free thinking appears to want censorship.''
By Andrew Halloway
Mind you, it’s got ‘previous’ on this issue, having waded into scientific arguments on many occasions. And, true to form, it is also trying to squash opposition to evolution, instead of standing for the ‘free thinking’ it claims to embrace.
The BHA says Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxhall, North Somerset, is bad for science, and has been urging tourism boards to boycott the zoo and the local authority to revoke its licence. Of course, the BHA’s concern for good science is a cloak for its opposition to creationism. When else do you ever see the BHA standing up for good science? Answer: only when creationism or Intelligent Design theory need a good kicking. Why? Because such unorthodox science threatens the atheistic view of life that the BHA espouses. It can stomach no opposition.
Signs at the zoo suggest that the "three great people groups" of the world may be descendants of Noah – which a literal reading of the Bible would certainly support. Another sign says animal predation occurred after "man rebelled against God". Now, such views might be typical of traditional Young Earth Creationism (YEC), but the website and two spokespeople for the zoo do say that they view “the natural world around us as a product of both God and evolution”.
A closer look at their website indicates they accept a limited form of evolution and believe that the world may be much older than the typical YEC position of less than 10,000 years. As a spokesperson says, "Although technically creationists, we do not hold the stereotypical creationist views that the world was created in 6,000 years and there is no evolution."
So we are not dealing here with the ultra-traditional creationism that the BHA seems to want to brand this zoo as espousing. But that is no matter to the BHA – any religious view on life must be suppressed. The BHA’s criticism is an attack not only on creationism but on freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
BHA education officer Paul Pettinger says, "We're very concerned because it will undermine education and the teaching of science." First, it’s ridiculous that one small zoo could undermine education as a whole, and second it certainly doesn’t undermine the teaching of science itself – only the teaching of a rigid Darwinian view of evolution. But of course, the BHA needs evolution to reign supreme in order to shore up its atheistic beliefs.
The zoo’s website says that scientists are afraid to talk about "design" in the natural world, and the zoo’s owner Anthony Bush says, "There's a lot of people who believe in Genesis who don't want to come out of the woodwork, but they don't want to come out of the closet because of the thought police."
Well, it’s clear why when the Inquisitors of the BHA come knocking on your door if you cast the slightest doubt on Darwinism.
Bush, a former Evangelical preacher, says his zoo actually presents a variety of views, only one of which is creationist. "I think God created life. I have no idea when," he adds.
One tourism group, Visit England, avoided the issue by pointing out that it only checks a zoo’s visitor satisfaction rating and has no opinion on content. On that score, Noah’s Ark Zoo is clearly a winner. Despite only having 100 animals, it is visited by 120,000 people every year, including members of school parties, yet only gets about ten complaints per year. As Noah's Ark research assistant Jon Woodwood says, "Clearly the public do not share the British Humanist viewpoint.''
BHA director of education and public affairs Andrew Copson also accuses the zoo of deceiving people about its creationist views: ''We believe Noah's Ark Farm Zoo misleads the public by not being open about its creationist agenda in its promotional activities.”
This is clearly untrue as the zoo website has a whole section on creationism and is completely open about its stance. And as Jon Woodwood points out, the zoo is actually named after the biblical Noah’s Ark – might that not be a big clue as to its viewpoint?!
As for undermining science education… ''Our education policy is purely based around the National Curriculum. We are offering our visitors the chance to look at the evolution/creation debate. As it is a free country, that is within our right. Contrary to a small minority of people's claims we do not teach false science.
''This is clearly shown within the zoo, with one exhibition talking about Darwin and another offering another point of view.”
Fortunately the director of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Miranda Stevenson, is perceptive: ''I find it extraordinary that an organisation that I thought promotes free thinking appears to want censorship.''
By Andrew Halloway
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Theos and Mary Midgley
Nick Spencer of Theos has interviewed Mary Midgley as part of their Rescuing Darwin project. This is written up in a report entitled Discussing Darwin. It would seem though that Midgley is closer to post-modernism and a multi-faith approach to truth, than the type of objective modernism that Darwinists believe underpins their science. Is she really the person to ask to defend science? Both Dawkins and scientific creationists have one point of agreement, that there is such a thing as objective truth.
http://campaigndirector.moodia.com/Client/Theos/Files/DiscussingDarwin.pdf
While she has a few good points to make, she believes for instance that Darwinism is the creation myth of our age, she seems in reality muddled by post-modern ideas. I am not convinced that Darwinists would really find such ideas of relative truth helpful to the advancement of objective science. She comments;
“Yes, we all have myths through which we explain the world. The word ‘myth’ is a bit awkward because it is sometimes used simply to mean ‘false’, but I find its other meaning very useful. I also talk about dreams and dramas and visions and so forth. Whichever way one talks about it, it’s about an imaginative background, a way of seeing a problem in the world which determines what questions you ask, how you select your questions.”(p. 13)
“I suppose it sounds less surprising if one refers to ‘visions’. It’s an imaginative framework within which one fits the different elements. (p.14)
“So if one asks what myth the term ‘evolution’ is propagating, it is rather a pernicious one in many ways, because whatever the right way to justify some policy may be, it never is that it is the only road to the future.” (p.16)
But while she believes in having one’s own ‘myth’, and recognizes the subjective and perhaps ‘pernicious’ nature of such beliefs; ‘revelation’ she thinks is dangerous. “You need to have an awareness that other people have views and that your position is just your position and not revelation. The idea of revelations is a dangerous one.” (p.15)
In this statement she is making the mistake of collapsing a belief in literal truth into militant fanaticism. That does not follow by necessity and is offensive to many people, but it is a prejudice of our age where liberals have an antithesis towards those who believe strongly in objective truth, whether it is suicide bombers, or those who uphold the absolute sanctity of life; but what of nihilism – and the darker side of Darwinism that comes out of ‘myth,’ isn't that potentially dangerous also?
So biblical literalism is apparently irrational and dangerous. That sounds to me like an argument that objective truth is irrational or relative truth is rational. As Mike Peter’s of the pop group the Alarm said, ‘The truth is the truth or the truth is surely a lie.’ Or as St Paul said, ‘let God be true and every man a liar.’
It is part of the muddled thinking of post-modernism where the only acceptable intolerance is towards those who are deemed intolerant because of their belief. I might ask on what basis and by whose authority should we reject objective truth - not on the basis of reason and logic I would guess. So why might I disagree with her article - perhaps for no other reason than it makes me feel good and it isn’t in accord with my ‘myth’, but that would be wholly unsatisfactory.
Midgley though thinks that creationists and intelligent design supporters are cutting themselves off from others. I would suggest the reverse is the case, that the liberals who accept Darwinism are expelling and ostracising those who want to believe that there is a truth and objectivity in the universe worth finding, a 'myth' that is ultimately true is the great hope of humanity.
http://campaigndirector.moodia.com/Client/Theos/Files/DiscussingDarwin.pdf
While she has a few good points to make, she believes for instance that Darwinism is the creation myth of our age, she seems in reality muddled by post-modern ideas. I am not convinced that Darwinists would really find such ideas of relative truth helpful to the advancement of objective science. She comments;
“Yes, we all have myths through which we explain the world. The word ‘myth’ is a bit awkward because it is sometimes used simply to mean ‘false’, but I find its other meaning very useful. I also talk about dreams and dramas and visions and so forth. Whichever way one talks about it, it’s about an imaginative background, a way of seeing a problem in the world which determines what questions you ask, how you select your questions.”(p. 13)
“I suppose it sounds less surprising if one refers to ‘visions’. It’s an imaginative framework within which one fits the different elements. (p.14)
“So if one asks what myth the term ‘evolution’ is propagating, it is rather a pernicious one in many ways, because whatever the right way to justify some policy may be, it never is that it is the only road to the future.” (p.16)
But while she believes in having one’s own ‘myth’, and recognizes the subjective and perhaps ‘pernicious’ nature of such beliefs; ‘revelation’ she thinks is dangerous. “You need to have an awareness that other people have views and that your position is just your position and not revelation. The idea of revelations is a dangerous one.” (p.15)
In this statement she is making the mistake of collapsing a belief in literal truth into militant fanaticism. That does not follow by necessity and is offensive to many people, but it is a prejudice of our age where liberals have an antithesis towards those who believe strongly in objective truth, whether it is suicide bombers, or those who uphold the absolute sanctity of life; but what of nihilism – and the darker side of Darwinism that comes out of ‘myth,’ isn't that potentially dangerous also?
So biblical literalism is apparently irrational and dangerous. That sounds to me like an argument that objective truth is irrational or relative truth is rational. As Mike Peter’s of the pop group the Alarm said, ‘The truth is the truth or the truth is surely a lie.’ Or as St Paul said, ‘let God be true and every man a liar.’
It is part of the muddled thinking of post-modernism where the only acceptable intolerance is towards those who are deemed intolerant because of their belief. I might ask on what basis and by whose authority should we reject objective truth - not on the basis of reason and logic I would guess. So why might I disagree with her article - perhaps for no other reason than it makes me feel good and it isn’t in accord with my ‘myth’, but that would be wholly unsatisfactory.
Midgley though thinks that creationists and intelligent design supporters are cutting themselves off from others. I would suggest the reverse is the case, that the liberals who accept Darwinism are expelling and ostracising those who want to believe that there is a truth and objectivity in the universe worth finding, a 'myth' that is ultimately true is the great hope of humanity.
Andrew Sibley
Saturday, 15 August 2009
James Lovelock calls for mitigation strategies
James Lovelock commented to an audience at the 'Ways With Words' literary festival at Dartington Hall, near Totnes in Devon that; "It's not going to take much of a sea-surge to knock out London. We should be spending money strengthening defences there rather than vain efforts to improve renewable energy."
Although he thinks renewables are a good idea, he is right to note that they are not very practical at present, instead more work needs to be done in developing mitigation strategies around the world to protect against sever weather. That would have a benefit to the world whether global warming is real or not.
Renewables are a waste of time, says James Lovelock Telegraph 14th July 2009
Although he thinks renewables are a good idea, he is right to note that they are not very practical at present, instead more work needs to be done in developing mitigation strategies around the world to protect against sever weather. That would have a benefit to the world whether global warming is real or not.
Renewables are a waste of time, says James Lovelock Telegraph 14th July 2009
Andrew Sibley
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