Evidence?

[A slightly edited (e.g., grammar, error in spelling) e-mail correspondence from 2008.]

Chris: Here are just a couple of links for now:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v23/i3/radiodating.asp

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2006/1105dolphin-legs.asp

Also, if you are genuinely, intellectually curious and want to read something scientifically rigorous then I have heard that Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box is good. I’m not sure what the biochemist Behe’s views are, but the book is presented as a “biochemical challenge to evolution.”

The following link mentions Behe briefly:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i2/admissions.asp

Steph: I’ll read the last link at a later point, because at the moment my concentration is compromised by my Goddaughters and their mother’s friend’s three-year-old daughter, (perhaps ironically) named Fayth.

Chris: In my opinion this link explains radiometric dating in the best and most easy to understand way:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-radiometric-dating-prove

As you’ll see from the above link, when performing these tests various assumptions have to be made. This test reveals how Evolutionists come up with their numbers. Rocks that are not yet 50 years old are dated “millions and millions” of years old by the Evolutionists. Obviously that particular method of “proving” evolution with its (alleged) millions of years is NOT reliable.

As far as radioisotope dating goes, I don’t believe it’s necessary to have someone who takes a “neutral” (as if that were possible) stance — it would just require an honest admission that this method is simply not reliable. I am not aware of any honest present day Evolutionists who will admit that this type of rock/earth dating is not reliable. I also don’t believe that any college or high school textbooks are going to undergo an honest revising any time soon.

The discrepancy in the dates shows that the testing is unreliable.  What is very important to realize is that BOTH the Evolutionists and the Creationists start the testing with their own a priori assumptions about the world. At the outset the Evolutionists rule out the possibility of “design.” Their presupposition is that all of life originated by natural processes. This is why they also presuppose billions of years or whatever so that these “natural processes” can happen gradually.

The Creationists at AiG (Answers in Genesis) SAY they presuppose the truth of the Bible, but in spite of that, they nevertheless “pray to a god who cannot save” (Isaiah 45:20). The AiG men believe that their “christ” died for those who are in hell.  So while they reject evolution and affirm a “creator,” they nevertheless affirm a “creator” who CANNOT SAVE and who does NOT have complete active control over His creation. My point is this:  My agreement with the aforementioned stuff at AiG is revealed as superficial once I and the AiG men DEFINE WHAT WE MEAN by “the God of the Bible is the Creator of the Universe.”

Steph:  As for the first two links, that’s actually fairly surprising information. What I would like to read, however, would be an article written from a neutral standpoint rather than either the Evolutionists or the Creationists. No offense to your side or the Evolutionary side, but everyone wants to pro that they’re right. I want someone to write about it who doesn’t care who’s right. When I get more of a chance I’ll research more into that.

Chris: While the Answers In Genesis (AiG) men have much good to say they are nevertheless purveyors of a damnable false gospel (cf. Galatians 1:8-9). There are also pictures of a “christ” in various places at their website which is contrary to the Second Commandment which forbids making “graven images” of God (see Exodus 20:4). So the AiG men only represent “[my] side” when they are demonstrating the unreliability of the methods used to date the earth, fossils, etc., but they do NOT represent “my side” when explaining who Jesus is and what He accomplished at the cross for all whom He represented (or in their case — what their (false) “jesus” failed to accomplish; cf. 2 Corinthians 11:4).

I don’t know about a supposed neutral standpoint (again, as if a “neutral standpoint” were possible, which it isn’t). There’s a movement called “Intelligent Design” (or “ID”) that includes both religious and non-religious persons that are part of the ID movement. Religious advocates of ID are quick to say that ID is not Creationism.  Stephen C. Meyer writes:

“Contrary to media reports, ID is not a religious-based idea, but an evidence-based scientific theory about life’s origins. According to Darwinian biologists such as Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins, living systems ‘give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.’

But, for modern Darwinists, that appearance of design is illusory, because the purely undirected process of natural selection acting on random mutations is entirely sufficient to produce the intricate designed-like structures found in living organisms.

By contrast, ID holds that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are best explained by a designing intelligence. The theory does not challenge the idea of evolution defined as change over time, or even common ancestry, but it disputes Darwin’s idea that the cause of biological change is wholly blind and undirected” (Meyer).

Chris: Many of the ID men (whether religious or irreligious) are not disputing that people came from apes (common ancestry) or even that things like radioisotope dating are accurate in the millions or billions of years. They merely dispute the whole process as being blind and undirected. And rather than assert “blind processes,” they assert “design.” Even the evolutionist Richard Dawkins when pressed, conceded that it just might be possible that we came from aliens (and thus aliens could be the designers).

Michael Behe (author of Darwin’s Black Box) is NEITHER a creationist, nor an evolutionist. I don’t know if he cares “who’s right” or not, but he accepts and rejects views from both camps. He challenges some of Darwin’s ideas, but not all of them. He might profess a “creator” (although not in the book that I am aware of; I have not read Behe’s book yet) but he still believes in common ancestry and thus he rejects the clear Biblical account in Genesis. It seems that Behe would be quoted by both sides perhaps, but also it seems that he would also catch a little fire from both sides as well.

I was watching a DVD where Behe said that he read a book by Michael Denton, an agnostic (at least agnostic at the time of writing) genetics researcher called Evolution: A theory in Crisis (Adler & Adler, 1996). He said reading the book made him angry because Denton was putting forth good arguments that Behe had never heard (whether at the college level or even at the Phd level).

Denton’s book spurred Behe to write his book. Anyways I think that something like Behe and/or Denton is about as apathetic as you’re going to get while still having serious, in depth, and scientifically rigorous writing. Behe would probably say that the AiG creationists and the evolutionists are both right and wrong in different areas. But even if an atheist or agnostic came to agree with Behe — and thus became a theistic evolutionist — then they might as well go back to being an atheistic evolutionist since they both are essentially the same. Despite the obvious technical difference in theological labels (e.g., theist vs atheist) they both say in their heart “There is no God” (cf. Psalm 14:1).

EDIT: I would add here that probably anything by David Berlinski (e.g., “Deniable Darwin,” “Devil’s Delusion”) would also be good to take a look at.