Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.17 $; site uiucdcsb.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcsb!miller 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 Lines: 113 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