This One Takes the Cake

Joshua said stop the sun and Galileo got prosecuted. The sun did not stop. Later, Charles Darwin said monkey and man shared the same grand-father and nothing much happened for a long time. You put your feet up, folded your arms behind your head admiring the intelligence behind the Lazy Boy recliner and unwinding your day when like a stupid kid swatting a mosquito on your forehead with ping-pong paddle, the Intelligent Design theory made its entry in to this world! It is at least an alternative – emphasized your next-door-God-fearing Ned Flanders! Controversies flowed with parents suing schools, schools being asked to put disclaimers on the text books, scientific bodies making noises against the religious enthusiasts and the religious enthusiasts with cheerleaders like Dubya making louder noises against the scientific bodies….

And just as you are about to go back reclining on your intelligent Lazy Boy recliner – SWAT – and this time with a book right on your nose - Grand Canyon: A Different View.

Is such kind of different view really required here? Geologists believe over years and years together, the Colorado River cut through the mountains; and what you have today is the chiseled, breath taking canyon. This should have been enough. But Tom Vail wants you to believe that the Canyon is the direct proof of Noah’s flood and not just a geological process. The Grand Canyon Park’s Visitor Center sells this book and is now being accused of invalidating science and promoting religious fundamentalism. In his column The Bible vs. science, Tom Krattenmaker tears apart the argument by Vail.

Vail's point, however, begs a question that he and like-minded creationists might not want asked. If they're objectively wrong about the genesis of the Grand Canyon and other geologic matters - you'll be hard-pressed to find a mainstream scientist who says they aren't - must they concede that God does not exist?

That, of course, is a rhetorical question. No amount of scientific evidence will convince an ardent creationist of the validity of human evolution or that the Earth is billions of years old.

Nevertheless, the question frames a problem with the stance of the anti-science creationists that threatens not only their version of the world's origins, but also the credibility of their religion itself. Because by attempting to marshal empirical evidence in support of their beliefs, they enter the debate on the scientists' terms - terms that cannot possibly work in favor of a literal reading of the Bible. By playing in this arena, haven't the creationists already lost the argument?

As the evangelical writer and religion professor Randall Balmer points out, confronting the public with objective evidence of the Bible's literal truth is misguided at its core. Writing about intelligent design (a counter to evolution that sees an unidentified "designer" behind the world's creation), Balmer says, "Paradoxically, when the Religious Right asserts intelligent design is science, it implies that faith in God is … inadequate, that it needs the imprimatur of the scientific method."

The Icing on the Cake

In Florence Y’all KY, a museum is soon set to open called the Creation Museum. This museum is assembling a collection of dinosaur models, fossils, minerals and other material. Reason? Apparently to "demonstrate that the Scriptural accounts of the Creation, Noah's flood, and other major events of biblical history can be trusted" say the organizers.

But the Creationists seem confused. For Krattenmaker sites

“In comments published last fall by the Baptist Press news service, a consultant to the Creation Museum implies that the very foundation of Christian belief will crumble if believers don't disprove the scientific consensus that humans evolved into existence tens of thousands of years ago. The consultant is one Kurt Wise, a Harvard-educated Ph.D. and director of the Center for Theology and Science at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Says Wise: "If humans really date back that far, and Adam lived far enough in the past to be their ancestor, then the genealogical record of Genesis 5 is wrong, and thus the Bible and its author, God, are wrong."

…

To most people, it sounds like Wise is going "all in" with a losing hand. Do religious believers really want the truth of their faith wagered on an attempt to prove that countless scientists have somehow botched their reading of the fossil record?

But here's the rub: Wise acknowledges that nothing can convince him that Earth is older than five or six thousand years. Why? Because the Bible is his ultimate authority. "The most important thing," he says, "is that you ought to be able to trust your God and the claims the Bible makes."

Krattenmaker asks

How ironic, then, that by dabbling in science to promote their beliefs, anti-science creationists are more likely eroding the very credibility they aim to bolster.

Writing Happy Birthday!

Krattenmaker’s column couldn’t have been at a more accurate time! An article published in DNA on Feb 8, 2007 (not sure if it is a reprint, the author is Anthony Mitchell) is titled Ancient find focus of modern debate.

The National Museum in Nairobi is all set to exhibit what’s famously known as the Turkana Boy fossil – presumably one of mankind’s oldest relics. This plan has come under attack from the popular evangelical Christian movement in Kenya. The head of Kenya’s 35 evangelical denominations, Bishop Boniface Adoyo says, “I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it. These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.” He is calling on his flock to boycott the exhibition and has demanded the museum relegate the fossil collection to a back room. He also wants a notice saying evolution is not a fact but merely one of a number of theories to be displayed in this backroom.

Richard Leakey, a leading fossil hunter and Paleontologist has pooh-poohed Adoyo – “whether the bishop likes it or not, Turkana Boy is a distant relation of his”. Leakey does not mince words – “The bishop is descended from the apes and these fossils tell how he evolved.”

Good one Richard Leakey!

And, if you really want to hear a different view on Grand Canyon, here is one: http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2000/08aug/grandcanyonbeginning.cfm.