Gimme a break man - I really do have a life !

A friend recently wrote to me (mistakenly) believing that the late Dr. Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research had "hijacked" Louis Pasteur by representing Pasteur as a creationist. You can read my blog entry a couple of weeks ago in response to the "Hijacker Henry" accusation. But he suggested also that my reading and information sources are too narrow. Sure, I would love to read everything around. But I am not a mountaintop-dwelling ascetic (Webster: ascetic = an extremely abstemious person). I really do have a life, which puts a few limitations on how well I can measure up to my friend's suggestion that I read most everything around.

So I sent him the following response:

To _______.

You have suggested that I expand my reading beyond "hardcore" creation literature.

(A) I must be efficient with my time so I subscribe to and read weekly "Science News." Sorry, that is the best I can usually do unless an especially interesting item comes along such as the "fresh" T-Rex tissue. Then I try to invest a bit of extra time.

(B) More importantly, God gave me a life and I prefer not to waste it. I prefer to read and depend more on sources which have fundamental integrity, which I have found the "hardcore" creationist sources to usually (but not always) have. I long ago tired of too much chasing every rabbit trail suggested by a bunch of dogmatic evolutionists whose materialistic worldview (religion) renders them absolutely incapable of considering any alternative point of view. The history of the evolution religion is littered with fraud, deception, and dishonesty. So please do not judge me too harshly if I tend to discount stuff that comes from the side of the argument that is frequently lacking in honesty and character. Just a few examples:
(1)Richard Dawkins' fundamental and obstinately enduring intellectual fraud in his famous and uncritically hailed book "The Blind Watchmaker." Any reasonably intelligent 6th grader, if honest, could see the fundamental fallacy of using a "target" or goal in showing his scenario of evolving the phrase "Methinks it is a weasel." The non-theistic evolutionists do not presuppose a known goal or target for the mindless and random processes of Neo-Darwinism. How could Dawkins keep a straight face? And how could his fellow carpet-baggers not blush at their own silence?
(2) National Geographic's Chinese feathered dinosaur fraud about 5 years ago;
(3) The Piltdown Man fraud. I suppose this is thoroughly covered in every school textbook so young malleable minds can be taught lessons about the need for caution and objectivity. Right? Right??
(4) Beijing Man: monkey skulls smashed at the back to scoop out the brains, so who was the eater?
(5) Nebraska Man (man and woman drawn in c. 1922 London DailyNews from evidence of one tooth, later found to be that of an extinct pig (pecarry);
(6) Eugene Dubois (Java Man discoverer) hiding modern looking skulls, unpublished, under the floor of his home for 30 years while continuing to receive funding in his search for Java Man and more. See
http://www.csm.org.uk/news.php?viewmessage=18;
(7) "Ontogeny recapitultes phylogeny," disproved in last journal article 1922, yet perpetrated to this day explicitly or by inference in educational texts all over the world;
(8) The disproven horse-evolution sequence now known as flawed, yet still used in many texts and/or museum displays;
(9) Steven Jay Gould saying "Evolution is a fact like apples falling out of trees," as if his pompous assertion makes it a fact. He is dead now, so he now knows the real truth about origins - much too late for his eternal soul to rest in eternal peace;
(9) Ernst Haeckl's purposefully fraudulent drawings of embryos in order to promote his "Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny" foolishness. He cheated with women too - a very consistent kind of guy.
(10) Absolute refusal of dogmatic evolutionists to address the findings of some of the world's most eminent scholars convened to address the role of known scientific processes and probability in producing the alleged results of evolution. This was at the Wistar Institute (I think Philadelphia, I think about 1966), with the clear conclusion that known physics and chemistry and probability theory can not explain the origin of life. That is still true to my observation;
(11) The almost universal refusal of evolutionists to acknowledge the difference between empirical/operational science and historical/forensic science and to understand WHICH of these has application for many questions of origins; creationists are (usually) honest about this,evolutionists (usually) are not.
(12) - (99,999) I tire.

Respectfully submitted,
D.U.

So who REALLY hijacked Louis Pasteur ?

THE CHALLENGE:
I recently received an email from an evolutionist friend who expressed grave doubt at the idea that Louis Pasteur was a creationist. From his (European) life sciences education, he was sure this was incorrect. He suggested that the eminent scientist had been "hijacked" by (the late) Henry Morris of the Institute of Creation Research (apparently to further the sinister dark cause of creationism).

BUT LOUIS PASTEUR HELD TO GOD AS "AUTHOR OF LIFE"
First, at the most basic level, Pasteur believed in God as "Author of Life", a quotation from the Bible. I found this quote: "As Pasteur put it, if we accept spontaneous generation, 'God as author of life would then no longer be needed. Matter would replace Him.'" (The Soul of Science, Pearcey and Thaxton, Crossway Books, 1994, p. 105). Interested friends could maybe find the original source of this quote.

WHERE IS HONESTY TO BE FOUND?
Secondly, I have not so far observed any failures of integrity by H Morris. But the history of fraud, deceit, and rank intellectual dishonesty litters the history of the evolution myth, right up to the present-day Richard Dawkins, whose obviously flawed "Blind Watchmaker" can only be swallowed by the willingly blind or the intellectually feeble.

ANYONE GOING TO 'FESS UP?
So where is the acknowledgment by evolutionists of the very ugly history of the evolution myth? The typical evolutionist approach seems to be like the 3 monkeys who "Hear no .., see no ..., speak no ...." Like if you just ignore it long enough, maybe it will go away. But those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, I am told.

SOME REGRET THEIR (MIS)EDUCATION:
An interesting read is Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome by John Sanford (one of the inventors of the gene gun). Sanford expresses regret that, as a grad student, he uncritically (naiively) accepted stuff in population genetics that he now realizes was based on flawed (maybe actually dishonest) assumptions.

DR. HENRY MORRIS WAS A STRAIGHT SHOOTER, SO WHO IS SPINNING WHOM?
So my friend, from what his prior education had taught him, thought Henry Morris was spinning Louis Pasteur. But, really, who is spinning whom? Consider the following quote:

"...it was a distortion for Vallery-Radot to assert that Pasteur was favorable to ideas of evolution. John Hudson Tiner said, “Pasteur rejected the theory of evolution for scientific reasons. He was the first European scientist to do so. He also rejected it on religious grounds”
(History of Medicine, p. 81). Creation Safaris: World's Greatest Creation Scientists."

It appears that instead of conducting a hijack, Henry Morris was merely reading The History of Medicine.

And the beat goes on.

Respectfully submitted, D.U.

Make that "gonna" instead of "fonna"

In a moment of breathtaking humanity, I misspelled "gonna" as "fonna" in the last post. I beg the reader's indulgence.

WOW !! I guess we're gonna have to rethink these fossilization processes, eh?

Everybody loves a dinosaur story, so you should enjoy this one.

Here is a link for the April 13, 2007, NY Times (NYT) article telling about the stunning identification of protein in the famous Montana T-rex whose femur was found two years ago to contain recent-appearing material:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/science/13dino.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Similar to the worldwide surprise when the stretchy, fresh-appearing material was found in the T-rex femur two years ago, the researchers' reaction to actually finding substantially intact protein is, like, "Wow ... we thought the absolute max for proteins to be preserved in the natural environment was one million years tops. We did not know these molecules could last so long. We will have to rethink this." But the article seems clear that all the rethinking is in understanding of fossilization processes, not in questioning the time scale.

But informed creationists such as your fearless blogger reply, "Well, duuhh, what is the big surprise? We expect to find stuff like this.".

Hmmmm ... seems that as discoveries such as the "fresh appearing", "stretchy", protein-bearing T-rex material continue to come to light, even the slow folks may begin to say there is something wrong with the 70-million years story of T-rex's age. Just like insect DNA in amber "millions of years" old. And the bacteria revived (I think in the year 2000) from water trapped in crystals recovered from a New Mexico borehole at a depth of 2000 feet in a layer of rock said to be 250 million years old. You can read about the bacteria in:

BBC News, Row over ancient bacteria, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1375000/1375505.stm,
19 June 2001; reporting on Graur and Pupko’s paper in the Journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Like eating fish with bones, however, just be sure to read the FACTS and don't swallow too hard or too quickly on the opinions and assertions.

And the beat goes on. For the discerning, a close look at the NYT dino protein article will reveal the discomfited dance to make sure the evolution myth is preserved - yea verily, trumpeted - intact. And does anyone note the precision with which some ignorance is quantified? How about that T-rex was 68 million years old? Not 65M or 70M, but 68M (68.0?).

So preservation of ancient biomaterials is now being rethought , since they are sure that protein could not last beyond 1 million years. They are still sure of the 68.00 million years, but now not so sure of their ideas of preservation of "ancient" biomolecules.

Hey reader, are you really getting the import of this? Dino is "known" to be 68.000M years old while her/his femur has protein which is "known" to not last any more than one million years. This is a pretty big rub here.

Maybe the rethinking needs rethinking. Since the longevity (or lack of) for proteins in the natural environment has some supporting observational data, why not rethink the (unobserved) 68.0000 M years?

How a bit more? In the NYT T-rex article, I do not see mention of anyone looking for DNA in the femur material. Likely it will never happen with Dr. Schweitzer's group since DNA is well known to substantially break down in the natural environment in several thousand years. And since the sample is 68.000M years old, finding any intact DNA segments in the sample is unthinkable. So the unthinkable investigation is not performed?

Maybe young earth creationists will likely have to go find their own T-rex femur to play with. I hope some of us are digging.

May the blessings of our Creator be upon us all as we seek to understand and enjoy His world which He has put into our stewardship. And may His mercies of forgiveness be upon us in our consistent failures in that stewardship.

Respectfully submitted,
D.U.