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From: miller@uiucdcsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: various replies
Message-ID: <32500005@uiucdcsb.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Oct-84 19:43:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.32500005
Posted: Fri Oct 12 19:43:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Oct-84 07:04:57 EDT
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Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcsb:32500005:000:8065
Nf-From: uiucdcsb!miller    Oct 12 18:43:00 1984


     Two introductory comments:
     First, this is the last "normal" note I will be posting for a while.  I am
editing the 2nd edition of the Students for Origins Research creationist
pamphlets.  As that has a higher priority, I'll be devoting all of my spare
time to that project.  Not to worry:  I've decided to upload them from my p.c.
as I get them completed and post them on the net.  So the only change is that I
won't respond to your net postings temporarily.  There will be 5 in the series,
and I hope to complete one every two weeks.  Topics are: The Creation/Evolution
Debate, The Origin of Life, The Fossil Record, The Geological Column, and The
Age of the Earth.  Comments from *both* sides on these pamphlets are desired.
     Second, evolutionists on the net seem to assume that since *their* ques-
tions didn't get answered, then creationists must be "stupid", "dishonest",
"evading", "ignorant", etc.  Michael Ward is representative when he writes:
>One hesitates to throw out accusations of dishonesty at individuals, but it
>begins to look like the only other answer is mental incompetence.
Paul DuBois, the current object of such scorn, replies:
>My (perhaps inexcusable) delay is due to my current perusal of anti-
>creationist literature.
Paul is too nice.  All of us have other careers/school and net.origins some-
times must take a back seat.  Not everyone can always get a personal or
complete reply.  Since net.origins was "created", our site has received 230
evolutionist notes, 63 creationist notes, and 29 neutral or can't tell notes
(I've been keeping track).  That's almost a 4 to 1 ratio; obviously creation-
ists are in the minority on this net.  Even a toad could realize with numbers
like that, a lot is going to be skipped.  Sad, but true.
     Michael Ward tosses out a lot of sarcasm and rhetoric, but also asks:
>Living fossils?  I have heard some wild claims, but this is the best yet!
>Please, cite the reference.  Where can I go to see living stone?
The term living fossil is probably a misnomer (like so many other things) but,
alas, that's what everyone calls them.  The term applies to species once iden-
tified as index fossils (i.e., fossils used to date the strata in which they
are found) and subsequently discovered to be very much alive!  The coelacanth
is a prime example and can be found in any large natural history museum.
     Bill Jefferys (like others this week) writes:
>How impressed Ray is with academic degrees!
Had he read my original note a tad closer, he would have discovered that I
brought the subject up as a reply to challenges of the academic credentials of
creationists.  Am I to understand that if creationists on the net don't reply
then they are criticized for not replying and if they do reply then they are
criticized for replying?  More double standards.
     Along similar lines, we hear Michael Ward write that creationism will
cause science to "die" and Mark Fishman (from my undergrad school) say that to
embrace creationism is "to reject science (and thereby to reject reason)".  Now
we hear some variation of this every week.  That's why I point out so many
great scientists of the past and present who accept creationism.  Not that
authorities prove a position (as many have claimed I suppose) but to show that
thousands of competent scientists and founders of disciplines have and do find
that the bulk of the scientific evidence supports the creation model.  It's
absurd to think that Pasteur, Maxwell, Cuvier, ... have caused science to die.
If name calling is the best you can do, then students will continue to slip
through the evolutionary fingers.
     Bill Jefferys also brings up the 1982 PBS show.  Classic example of yellow
journalism.  PBS interviewed Doolittle, then Gish (without telling him about
Doolittle) and then went and showed Doolittle Gish's interview before taping a
second segment with him.  No surprise then when we saw Gish say "blah" followed
by Doolittle saying "Oh, that's nonsense, blah blah".  Now as to the "Origins
Research" letter, I can only conclude that Gish was referring to the evolution-
ist Dr. Colin Patterson.  Speaking at the American Museum of Natural History in
NY on Nov. 5, 1981 on the subject of evolution and biochemical similarities, he
said "The theory makes prediction, we've tested it, and the prediction is
falsified precisely".  He had the latest data on molecular homology, amino
acid, and nucleotide sequence studies obtained only a month earlier in Ann
Arbor.  This was for the amino acid sequences for the alpha hemoglobins of a
viper, crocodile, and a chicken.  (The two reptiles should be closest).  But of
the amino acids in common, it is the crocodile and chicken (17.5%), next the
viper and chicken (10.5%) and last the two reptiles (5.6%).  An examination of
the amino acids in myoglobin shows crocodiles and lizards share 10.5%, while
the crocodile and chicken share only 8.5%.  *But* the lizard and chicken also
share 10.5% - the same as the reptile/reptile pair.  Patterson then questioned
the way data has been manipulated by evolutionists.  In describing studies of
mitochondrial DNA done on men and various primates, he notes the numbers used
for comparison are only produced after evolution is assumed to be true and the
computer is told to find a phylogenetic tree.  In the case of DNA, we should
expect a 25% match (since there are only 4 possibilities for each position),
yet among 5 presumably closely related species (man, chimpanzee, gorilla,
orangutan, and gibbon) there was only a 7% match.
     This is starting to get long, so I'll condense the rest quite a bit:
     Several people jumped on my discussion of abiogenesis last time.  The key
phrase in most of that was "steady net production".  Sorry Ralph, et al, this
does *not* happen.  The destruction rate of the components is a couple of
orders of magnitude higher than the production rate. Miller's spark chamber had
a cold trap to remove what he was looking for, otherwise, it would have quickly
been destroyed.  But once he removed it from the energy source, no further
reactions, and hence progress, could take place.
     Lew brings up Gould's "The Panda's Thumb", writing:
>Said thumb is actually a development of the wrist bone.
First of all, that's a evolutionary hypothesis, which Gould uses to prove evo-
lution.  Once again, the assumption of evolution is the best proof of evolu-
tion.  Second, Gould (and Lew) presume to know how a Creator *would have
designed it if there really was a Creator*.  Is Gould suddenly omniscient?
     Byron Howes quotes from Darwin, thinking he was the first on the net to do
so.  Well, no, I quoted Darwin just last month, showing that because of evolu-
tionary presuppositions he, at least, held ideas we today would call racist.
Anyway, Byron doubts whether Darwin ever rejected the notion of a Creator.
Allow me to quote Darwin again: "In my most extreme fluctuations I have never
been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of God.  I think that
generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic
would be the more correct description of my state of mind." (Life and Letters
of Charles Darwin, Vol I, p. 274.)  Quite a statement from one whose only
degree was in theology.  Well, make what you will of his agnostic comment...
     Finally, Ethan Vishniac says he has been "struck by a series of comments
by R. Miller" and then goes on to discuss things like overthrusts, plate
tectonics, etc.  Now I don't know what net he has been reading, but I suggest
he pay a bit more attention to this one.  I don't recall anyone bringing up
those subjects on the net (certainly not me!)  Perhaps someone else has, but I
haven't seen anything on that for at least 6 months.  He asks 6 specific ques-
tions, but I must ask him to wait for the SOR pamphlets, as they will answer
his questions I hope.  All I'll say now is that the creation model is neutral
with respect to the various ideas about continental drift in current conditions.
A. Ray Miller
Univ Illinois