More Media Distortions

We are used to it, of course—people whose agenda overrides the truth in their articles--but as a guest column was written for the Atlanta Journal Constitution website (and may appear in today’s print edition) by an author (Shelley Emling is the author of the ‘forthcoming biography of Mary Anning, “The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World”’), I thought I should illustrate how such an author just can’t be trusted to write accurate information.

Here are a few excerpts from her article entitled, “Science and religion find common ground,” with my comments:

Ken Ham, whose Creation Museum in Kentucky just celebrated its second anniversary this weekend, has never been more sure that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old and that God created everything in six divinely ordered 24-hour time slots. To Ham, it doesn’t matter that scientists have recently unveiled Ida — the 47-million-year-old fossil hailed as the evolutionary link between modern primates and more distant species — the latest in a string of significant fossils to be hyped by the media.

COMMENT: The statement “God created everything in six divinely ordered 24-hour time slots” is usually written this way to convey the idea that creationists believe God created all the animals and plants etc. that we see today. However, God created the original animals and plants—the ones today are descendants of the originals. God didn’t create poodles as such, for instance—God created the original dog kind—and poodles are part of the dog kind—but like other domestic dogs have mutations because of sin and the Curse.

The author also needs to read what many evolutionists are saying about Ida—they are embarrassed that the false claims were made about this supposed evolutionary link. I urge the author to read the two articles on the AiG website—one of which references many evolutionists’ comments rejecting Ida as such an evolutionary link.

“No other book gives an account of origins as specifically as the Bible,” said Ham, whose museum just 20 miles southwest of Cincinnati has attracted 720,000 visitors since opening in 2007. I met Ham, founder of the nonprofit ministry Answers in Genesis, earlier this year in London after he gave a speech at Westminster Chapel, part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain and the rest of Europe. Rarely have I met someone so confident and engaging. I became interested in Ham’s message after writing a biography of Mary Anning, a dirt-poor girl who cajoled one never-before-seen prehistoric monster after another from their Jurassic tombs in the cliffs along England’s southern coast in the early 1800s. Her fossil finds – ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, pterodactyls — paved the way for the work of Charles Darwin, whose book “On the Origin of Species” was published 150 years ago, and thus forever changed the way people thought about the world around them. Like Ham, most people during Anning’s time had absolute faith in the fact that species never evolved or became extinct. Everything that existed had always existed. There wasn’t any radioactivity or relativity, extinction or evolution, to muddle things.

COMMENT: Huh???? Species do change—different species of animals can form (and do). However one kind (like the dog kind—which has many different species within the kind) cannot change into a totally different kind. The biblical ‘Kind’ is in most instances at a ‘Family’ level in classification (Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus , Species). And species do become extinct (in fact, kinds have become extinct)—extinction occurs each year and has occurred in the past.

Also, there wasn’t any radioactivity … !!! Now where have I ever made such a ridiculous statement? Sometimes I wonder whether these writers just make up stuff for the sake of a good story, or are so totally confused, and so anti what we stand for, they can’t discern truth from fiction.

Ham argues that God created the world in six days — literally. Simply put, he says the word “day” shouldn’t be taken symbolically because a word can never be symbolic the first time it’s used. But, interestingly, some of the earliest Christian theologians accepted that at least some parts of the Bible’s text, including the Creation story, were meant to be taken allegorically. In the early fifth century, St. Augustine argued against the validity of a literal six-day creation in “The Literal Meaning of Genesis.” Augustine also displayed an incredibly scientific mind-set, contending that people should be willing to draw different conclusions in the face of God-given reasoning.

COMMENT: Augustine didn’t argue for millions of years for the days of creation as is the common argument today—but regardless, many great scholars (Calvin, Luther, etc.) did argue for six literal days on the basis of the text of Scripture (see AiG’s website for relevant articles). Many church fathers didn’t deal specifically with the issue. However, a fallible human should never be our authority—God’s Word is the authority.

Ham agrees that natural selection can provide an organism with an edge in its environment, but refuses to believe that the process can lead to a new species. In other words, dogs can develop new traits from one generation to the next, but dogs will always remain dogs.

COMMENT: I certainly do not “refuse to believe the process [of natural selection] can lead to new species.” I get so tired of this false accusation. If this writer had done just a tiny bit of research on the AiG website, it is obvious that myself and many others have written about speciation—but speciation is not evolution in the molecules-to-man Darwinian sense!

But after years and years of observation, Darwin, of course, believed there was something inherently wrong with the idea that species are fixed. And, so, can the two sides ever be reconciled?

COMMENT: Creationists do not believe species are fixed! Read articles on the AiG website.

Today there is a movement that believes one can have faith in both science and religion while emphasizing that the Bible doesn’t specifically mention the Earth’s age.

COMMENT: Of course the Bible doesn’t mention the earth’s age! The Bible was completed nearly 2000 years ago! However, the Bible does give a specific history concerning births and deaths starting with Adam, and other specific historical data to enable one to add up the dates and come up with an estimate for the age of the earth (of around 6000 years).

You can read the rest of the AJC article (this is one of the largest newspapers in the U.S.) and the lame ending at this link: www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2009/05/31/emlinged_0531.html

Fossil Cost $750,000?

The fossil (called ‘Ida’) that received so much media attention lately is reported (by Fox News) to have cost $750,000. Fox News is reporting from The Times that nearly $750,000 was paid for the Ida fossil www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,522476,00.html. This may explain part of the reason there was so much media hype to help sell the book and promote the TV program, etc! If you haven’t read AiG’s articles on this fossil, I urge you to do so.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying

Ken