March 1991

Making evolution nervous?

Dear Editor,

Mention is made here and there through the most recent edition of Gray’s Anatomy (36th Edition) which I have just read, that structures like the nervous system are just as sophisticated in lower creatures as they are in man. That is, the way lower animals are ‘wired up’, and the way the wiring works, does not get better and better, does not change, does not evolve.

The beautiful blueprint is used throughout the animal kingdom. Each system is geared for the animal in question. In fact, that edition of Gray’s is positively creationist, not evolutionist.

Keith Stevenson, Cunnamulla, Queensland, Australia.

Family discipline

Dear Editor,

I am concerned about the role of parents in the Christian home, particularly the discipline of children within that home.

Our boys and girls are exposed to anti-Christian teaching from their earliest years via the media, schools, libraries, etc. So the witness in the home becomes even more important.

I recently accompanied my four-year-old granddaughter to visit the local fire station with her play group. The first thing the station officer did was show these young children a video which was meant to show them that fire can be a friend or an enemy. In reality, it was blatant indoctrination in evolution. Fire started, they were told, when Stone Age man sitting in his cave needed warmth and some way to cook his meat. An acceptance of evolution has opened a Pandora’s box of secular humanism, so whether child or adult you do what ‘feels’ right to you. Nevertheless, children appreciate a firm hand and guidelines. A child finds security in parental love and guidance, which is of course why a wise Creator says, ‘Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord’ (Colossians 3:20).

The biblical pattern is children subject to parents, wife subject to husband, and all subject to God. A child who is not disciplined from his early days does not learn the important lesson of self-discipline. Very often this carries over into his or her adult years, with disastrous consequences.

The true Christian home can be one of the most potent witnesses of Christianity to a needy world.

Christian parents, resolve to make your home just that, as you put into practice what our Creator-God has instructed in His Word the Bible. We must not make it hard to tell the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian family.

Mrs Norma Taylor, Devonport, Tasmania, Australia.

Help to join the missing link

Dear Editor,

Thank you for the excellent magazine Creation. I have been a subscriber since the magazine was first produced and have all copies from Vol. 1 No. 1, except Vol. 11 No. 2 and Vol. 11 No. 3. I am wondering if among your readers there may be someone who does not wish to keep those two issues and would not mind selling them to me.

Patricia Coventry, 14 Finniss Street, Marion, 5043, South Australia.

Speed of light

Dear Editor,

In both the second printing of Barry Setterfield’s The Velocity of Light and the Age of the Universe (August 1983, p. 172) and the May 1984 issue of Ex Nihilo (Vol. 6, No. 4, p. 46) appears the following:

DR. WALTER BROWN, MATHEMATICAL PHYSICIST, DIRECTOR, MIDWEST SCIENCE CENTRE, CHICAGO, USA

‘The theoretical derivation of the same cosec 2 decay function as the computer curve, but this time from electromagnetic theory alone, makes the whole proposition of c decay virtually unassailable.’

I am writing to make it known that Walter Brown disclaims responsibility for the quoted statement. In Brown’s article, ‘A Second Response to Jim Lippard’ (Creation/Evolution, Winter 1989–90, p. 39), he states that this quotation is ‘spurious’ and ‘[it] says that I agreed with a certain theoretical derivation. I never did.’

I suggested (in letters of June 19, 1989 and August 27, 1990) to Walter Brown that he write to disclaim his association with this quotation, but for unknown reasons he doesn’t seem to think it worth his time. I disagree, and think that this is something which deserves to be known by the creationist community.

Jim Lippard, Graduate student in philosophy, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA.

[We contacted Walter Brown who said that while he was disturbed at having been misquoted as appearing to show unconditional agreement with Setterfield’s conclusions, he was ‘even more disturbed at the several false statistical studies that have criticized his [Setterfield’s] work’. Dr Brown said that when he and ‘other statisticians’ have checked and corrected these errors, it actually supports the Setterfield hypothesis (of a historical decline in light-speed). The changing c controversy continues in an upcoming TJ, which should feature a major critique summarizing and encapsulating many previous critiques, followed by a vigorous counter-critique.—Ed.]