Reducibly Complex

This is Part 6 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #6.

STATEMENT: ”Human Artifacts throughout the Geologic Column…Man-made artifacts - such as the hammer in Cretaceous rock, a human sandal print with trilobite in Cambrian rock, human footprints and a handprint in Cretaceous rock – point to the fact that all the supposed geologic periods actually occurred at the same time in the recent past.”

RESPONSE: The work cited for this claim is Carl Baugh’s Why Do Men Believe Evolution Against All Odds?. However, this claim has been disproved by scientists and, more importantly, criticized by creationists. Many creationists, including the creationist organization Answers in Genisis (AIG), have criticized Baugh, claiming that he has “muddied the water for many christian.” Don Batten, of Creation Ministries International wrote: “Some Christians will try to use Baugh’s ‘evidences’ in witnessing and get ’shot down’ by someone who is scientifically literate. The ones witnessed to will thereafter be wary of all creation evidences and even more inclined to dismiss Christians as nut cases not worth listening to.”

As to Baugh’s “artifacts,” his evidence is lacking. “In 1982-1984, several scientists, including J.R. Cole, L.R. Godfrey, R.J. Hastings, and S.D. Schafersman, examined Baugh’s purported ‘mantracks’ as well as others provided by creationists in the Glen Rose Formation. In the course of the examination ‘Baugh contradicted his own earlier reports of the locations of key discoveries’ and many of the supposed prints ‘lacked human characteristics.’ After a three year investigation of the tracks and Baugh’s specimens, the scientists concluded there was no evidence of any of Baugh’s claims or any ‘dinosaur-man tracks’” (quoted from Wikipedia page on Carl Baugh).

CONCLUSION: It is important to note that Carl Baugh is the founder of the Creation Evidence museum, the organization that has compiled this list of “evidences” for creation. Baugh’s own work has been scientifically debunked, and Baugh himself is considered to be a detriment to the creationist cause by his contemporaries. This fact alone should be enough to convince the masses not to believe in his argument for creation based on human artifacts found “throughout the geologic column.”

(Note: The geologic column in itself is a faulty argument. See Part 1 of this blog for more information.)

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This is Part 5 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #5.

STATEMENT: Physicist Robert Gentry has reported isolated radio halos of polonuim-214 in crystalline granite. The half-life of this element is 0.000164 seconds! To record the existence of this element in such short time span, the granite must be in crystalline state instantaneously. This runs counter to evolutionary estimates of 300 million years for granite to form.

RESPONSE: The work that is the basis for this argument is Creation’s Tiny Mystery by Robert Gentry. Gentry’s overall scientific process was done well, but his interpretations of his data were faulty. Geologist Lorence Collins notes: ”The geology of the sites at which Po halos are found clearly shows that Gentry’s proof of instantaneous creation and a young Earth is nothing of the sort. Gentry’s Po halos simply do not occur in primordial granites, but instead were formed in relatively young dikes that demonstrably crosscut older sedimentary and igneous rocks. Gentry claims to be an objective scientist but he has, in fact, ignored the very extensive published evidence that disproves his hypothesis. In addition, when confronted with this evidence he simply denies its existence. Such behavior is not characteristic of scientists, but of pseudoscientists.” (Dr. Lorence Collins)* Furthermore, Geologist Gregg Wilkerson, in a review of Creation’s Tiny Mystery, stated: “the book is a source of much misinformation about current geologic thinking and confuses fact with interpretation.” I could go on, but I digress.**

CONCLUSION: As with many of the arguments from so-called creation “scientists,” Gentry’s work is biased by his preconceived conclusion. In this case, Gentry was actually doing real science, but was misinterpreting his results based on his biased point of view. The objectiveness of his science is completely lacking, invalidating it all together.

*Dr. Lorence Collins has several articles critiquing the claims of Robert Gentry. The article cited is off of his website, but lacks a title.

**For more information on Gentry’s work, try here.

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This is Part 3 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #3.

STATEMENT: ”The Biblical record clearly describes a global Flood during Noah’s day. Additionally, there are hundreds of Flood traditions handed down through cultures all over the world.”

RESPONSE: The biblical “record” does describe a flood. And yes, there are hundreds of flood traditions handed down throughout the world. This proves nothing. The bible is not scientific, so its story proves nothing. The traditions are not scientific and also prove nothing.

Floods are not an unusual thing. In ancient times, it would not be unusual for a flood (especially in a desert climate) to wipe out vast quantities of the population, as warning systems wouldn’t have existed, waterway control was primitive, etc. Unusually strong rains could and would bring destructive floods, but this is not a biblical event. For instance, I live in Wisconsin. This past spring we had very strong rains, much stronger than usual. Despite the system of dams and controlled waterways (rivers, spillways, etc.), we had large flooding throughout southern Wisconsin and into Illinois and Iowa. These floods (particularly in more rural areas) caused massive destruction and some deaths and injuries. The loss of life was less than it could have been because of early warnings, controlled waterways, and (importantly) a well-functioning healthcare system and emergency response system.

So take this flood and localize it in ancient times when a large rain would produce catastrophic flooding. Is it unreasonable to assume that survivors of such a flood would pass down the story of this flood to their offspring and that this would eventually become a culturally traditional story? And is it unreasonable to assume that a large flood could happen in more than one place on the earth in more than one time period, causing multiple cultures to have their own traditional flood story? The biblical account of such a flood is no proof of a “world-wide” flood. At best, it is the recounting of one large-scale local flood that all but wiped-out an entire community’s or country’s population.

(for the sake of this response, we are ignoring the account of Noah, as it is not mentioned in the article’s argument).

STATEMENT: “M.E. Clark and Henry Voss have demonstrated the scientific validity of such a Flood providing the sedimentary layering we see on every continent.”

RESPONSE: I scoured all over the internet for anything I could find on M.E. Clark and Henry Voss and came up with nothing. Supposedly they have demonstrated validity of the flood at an International Conference on Creation in 1994. I would very much like to know their qualifications, credentials, and what they said! Until this is brought to my attention, I am left to believe that, because they made this demonstration at a creation conference, that they are, like many other proponents of a creation, biased in their findings; why else would the geologic community at large otherwise disagree with the idea of a world-wide flood event.

STATEMENT: “Secular scholars report very rapid sedimentation and periods of great carbonate deposition in earth’s sedimentary layers.”

RESPONSE: Cited as evidence for this statement is Derek Ager’s The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record. Here is Ager’s response to the use of his work to support creationist arguments:

“For a century and a half the geological world has been dominated, one might even say brain-washed, by the gradualistic uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell.  Any suggestion of ‘catastrophic’ events has been rejected as old-fashioned, unscientific and even laughable.  This is partly due to the extremism of some of Cuvier’s followers, though not of Cuvier himself. 

On that side too were the obviously untenable views of bible-oriented fanatics, obsessed with myths such as Noah’s flood, and of classicists thinking of Nemesis.  That is why I think it necessary to include the following ‘disclaimer’: in view of the misuse that my words have been put to in the past, I wish to say that nothing in this book should be taken out of context and thought in any way to support the views of the ‘creationists’ (who I refuse to call ’scientific’)” [Ager's emphasis] (Ager, Derek, 1993, 1995 (paperback edition), The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Great Britain). (thanks to Dr. Kevin R. Henke)

As Ager shows, his comments have been taken out of context. Like many pseudosciences and their proponents, creationists cherry-pick scientific material for the one or two factoids that seem to support their view, dismissing the context of the work and the voluminous evidence that contradicts the creationists’ claims.

STATEMENT: “It is now possible to prove the historical reality of the Biblical Flood.”

RESPONSE: This final statement in the argument contains a citation for John Anthony West, who has proposed, with the help of Robert Schoch, an alternative hypothesis as to the age of the Great Sphinx of Giza based on erosion supposedly due to heavy rain. However, mainstream archaeologists and egyptologists do not accept this hypothesis, arguing that the erosion has been caused by wind, sand, acid rain, exfoliation, or poor quality of the limestone used in the Sphinx’s construction.

All this aside, it is not possible to “prove the historical reality of the flood.”  How does the erosion of the Great Sphinx in Egypt (possibly do to rain) have anything to do with the supposed flood of Noah’s time? And how does it prove that the flood happened.

CONCLUSION: None of the supposed evidence given to support the creationists’ argument proves a flood. Traditions are not proof, nor are evidences from scientists that are taken out of context, nor is an argument for the possible erosion of the Great Sphinx due to rain (rain does NOT equal flooding). The supposed ‘great flood’ never happened.

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This is Part 1 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #1.

STATEMENT: “Evolutionists have constructed the Geologic Column in order to illustrate the supposed progression of “primitive” life forms to “more complex” systems we observe today.”

RESPONSE: This is true, although it should be clarified that Geologists created this. There is no such thing as an evolutionist; evolutionism implies that evolution is a scientific ideology (which it is not) instead of a scientific theory (which it is).

STATEMENT: “Yet, ’since only a small percentage of the earth’s surface obeys even a portion of the geologic column the claim of their having taken place to form a continuum of rock/life/time over the earth is therefore a fantastic and imaginative contrivance.’”

RESPONSE: This is a quote from John Woodmorappe, which is a “pen name of an author who has published several articles and books with the creation science groups Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research. His main works are Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study and the The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods. He has also written several articles in creationist journals” (quoted from the Wikipedia page on John Woodmorappe). In other words, the quote used as evidence is coming from a person with the biased opinion of the creation “scientists” rather than an objective observer. Thus, this quote has little, if any, strength. Also, the geologic column is not an absolute, as is noted below (see CONCLUSION).

STATEMENT: “‘[T]he lack of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to the scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled.’”

RESPONSE: This quote from botanist N. Heribert Nilsson is a great example of the logical fallacy “argument from authority.” Creationists make the mistake that since Nilsson was a scientist, he is an authority in his field. Nilsson was a geneticist and botanist…and a loon. His theories were quack, to say the least. Tom McIver wrote in Anti-Evolution: An Annotated Bibliography:

[Nilsson believed that] During these catastrophic periods, new organisms are created by “emication” — a drastic alteration or production of gametes. A few survive as totally new forms. Inspired by Oparin’s theory of spontaneous origin of life, Nilsson argues that these gametes, of entirely new organisms, could form spontaneously and polyphyletically, out of the mix of biocatalytic substances engendered during the catastrophic episodes. “During paleobiological times whole new worlds of biota have been repeatedly synthesized.” Nilsson declares that organisms such as orchids and elephants were “instantly created out of non-living material.”

Nilsson himself in this argument is guilty of confusing the currently unexplained with the unexplainable, which is itself another logical fallacy. Just because the “deficiencies are real,” (which they are not (see CONCLUSION)) does not mean that they “cannot be explained” or “will never be filled.”

STATEMENT: “This supposed column is actually saturated with ‘polystrate fossils’ (fossils extending from one geologic layer to another) that tie all the layers to one time-frame.”

RESPONSE: This statement is very misleading in that it attempts to say that fossils of a particular type can be found throughout the column. What is actually the case is that these fossils can be found in multiple parallel layers. This does NOT “tie all the layers to one time-frame” but ties some species to multiple time-frames, something completely different and logically feasible.

STATEMENT: “‘[T]o the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation.’”

RESPONSE: This quote from E.J.H. Corner is commonly used by creationists as proof that even a botanist like Corner believes in a creation. However, this quote is taken out of context. The full quote is:

The theory of evolution is not merely the theory of the origin of species, but the only explanation of the fact that organisms can be classified into this hierarchy of natural affinity. Much evidence can be adduced in favour of the theory of evolution - from biology, bio-geography and palaeontology, but I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation. If, however, another explanation could be found for this hierarchy of classification, it would be the knell of the theory of evolution. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition. Textbooks hoodwink. A series of more and more complicated plants is introduced - the alga, the fungus, the bryophyte, and so on, and examples are added eclectically in support of one or another theory - and that is held to be a presentation of evolution. If the world of plants consisted only of these few textbook types of standard botany, the idea of evolution might never have dawned, and the backgrounds of these textbooks are the temperate countries which, at best, are poor places to study world vegetation. The point, of course, is that there are thousands and thousands of living plants, predominantly tropical, which have never entered general botany, yet they are the bricks with which the taxonomist has built his temple of evolution, and where else have we to worship? (E.J.H. Corner 1961, from ‘Evolution’, p. 97, in “Contemporary Botanical Thought”, Anna M. Macleod and L. S. Cobley (editors), Oliver and Boyd, for the Botanical Society of Edinburgh)

E.J.H. Corner is not somebody that creationists should be quoting as believing in creation. Corner, among other achievements, was awarded the Darwin award in 1960 and the Linnaean Gold Medal in 1970 for his contributions to science. He was far from a creationist and certainly attested to the validity of evolution.

CONCLUSION: The geologic column is poor evidence against evolution because of one very simple fact: the geologic column is not an absolute, it is an abstract tool. It is a concept, not a physical thing. The column is simply an illustration of the earth’s strata in terms of a chronological order. We know this order exists, and this is what we mean when we refer to the geologic column. Different localities will display the chronological order of the strata to different degrees, sometimes not displaying a particular strata, sometimes displaying a particular one to an extended degree.

Also, the “lack of transitional series” is a bogus claim as well. Creationists will state that there is a lack of transitional fossils showing how one species could have evolved into another species. However, these transitional fossils are discovered all the time. When this happens, of course, the creationists will now claim that there is a lack of transitional fossils between the first species and the new discovered species, and between the new discovered species and the second species. Thus, two new gaps are created that now need their own set of transitional fossils. In this way, this argument is another logical fallacy; namely it is The Moving Goalpost fallacy. Basically, the criteria for proof (the goalpost) is set as needing a transitional fossil between two species. When that criteria is met, the goalpost is moved and now there is new criteria for proof. In this manner, there becomes no way to ever prove evolution.

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Anyone who thinks that life could not have happened “by chance” is not educated on the fact that the evolutionary process that brought life to this planet and had that life eventually develop into the human species took a long long time. If that includes you, you need to get educated. This timeline lays out the process from start to current, detailing the billions of years that the process took.