Atheist Jerry Coyne Is Condescending Once Again

Johns Hopkins University decided to invite Ben Carson to speak at their 2013 graduation.ceremony. Ben Carson is a neurosurgeon who attended Johns Hopkins University. He also happens to be a creationist who is against gay marriage. There was an uproar from the gay community about Carson’s stance against gay marriage, so he withdrew which was a mistake.

Instead, he accepted an invite at another university. There were no gay groups protesting at this one, but evolutionists were not happy about it. Namely Jerry Coyne and others. Coyne writes…

“Yes, Carson worked his way up from a horrible background (raised in Detroit by a single mom) to a position of prestige and accomplishment, and yes, he’s been a role model to black students.  But none of that, to my mind, outweighs his profoundly creationist views.  He certainly shouldn’t be barred from speaking because of his faith, but the officials who pick commencement speakers should have excluded him because his view of science, based on lies, is hardly exemplary of an institution devoted to learning.  Truth outweighs inspiration.”  

He shouldn’t be barred but just have excluded him? What Jerry Coyne is advocating is restricting freedom of speech because of a difference of opinion about science, he means evolution. Listen, Neurosurgery is a science Mr. Coyne!  Carson has successfully performed surgery on the nervous system and has been good at it without believing in evolution! Neurosurgery has nothing to do with evolution because its operational science. It’s like learning how a car engine works and performing repairs on it, both are intelligently designed!

Here is some of the feedback from Coyne’s choir…

“When a university asks someone with backwards views about science to give a commencement speech, they are tacitly supporting those beliefs even if they are doing so indirectly.

It’s unfortunate as Dr. Carson’s incorrect understanding of biology taints his accomplishments. I’d be uncomfortable if he were my surgeon even though he is accomplished.”

“Isn’t Evolution the basis of all medicine? Infectious diseases are a cat and mouse game of evolution of the pathogen in just a short period of time. How did he pass all of the biology courses required to get into medical school? Did he lie when taking the tests? I’m tired of these religious types in medicine. They are fakes. And I hope he’s not praying before surgery. I want my doctor to be a cocky, arrogant, self-centered prick when he’s operating on my brain. I want him to have absolute confidence in his skills not in some wizard in the sky.”

This guy here thinks a belief in evolution is required to pass biology that is about evolution! Another guy claimed he fixed two of Carson’s “less-than-stellar results” and my question to him would be, “How did you use evolution to correct those results?” And I don’t mean just believing in it, I mean actually using evolutionary theory in surgery situations. They treat evolution like a cult.  And it’s the wrong religion based on stories. The greatest fear they have is creationists having success in the area of science. And if creationists are having success, it’s another blow to their ill conceived reasoning on why everyone should believe in evolution. So they remain condescending towards creationists.

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Academic Freedom Bills Under Siege

Can students question explanations based on evolution in public schools? Does this imply that public schools would be teaching creationism or intelligent design alongside evolution? Back when the Louisiana Academic Freedom Act,” was filed on March 21, 2008, and then modified into the “Louisiana Science Education Act” which included all areas of science. A storm of protests from special interests like the NCSE, and militant atheists alike in their blogs were all claiming the bill would teach creationism to the students!

Almost five years later, we are observing some of the same attacks with the latest Academic Freedom Bills! Some of which are more bizarre this time around along with lying about its contents…

Consider this example coming from the guardian…

“Four US states are considering new legislation about teaching science in schools, allowing pupils to be taught religious versions of how life on earth developed in what critics say would establish a backdoor way of questioning the theory of evolution.”

“A watchdog group, the National Center for Science Education, said that the proposed laws were framed around the concept of “academic freedom”. It argues that religious motives are disguised by the language of encouraging more open debate in school classrooms. However, the areas of the curriculum highlighted in the bills tend to focus on the teaching of evolution or other areas of science that clash with traditionally religious interpretations of the world.”

Exactly what “religious versions” are they talking about? They didn’t specify on how they came to such a bizarre conclusion! They have excellent first hand information now as other states have passed bills similar to this one and it’s been a few years or so since passage, like Texas which is another example to the “Louisiana Science Education Act”, perhaps the best example so far!

Texas science standards have been a pleasant surprise to say the least because its standards changed for the better, with stronger language than ever before! It was a huge victory for empirical science and a stunning loss for the opposition who almost had a heart attack! lol  So again I ask, where are those religious versions being taught in those schools as mentioned by the guardian? They know fully well that it’s against the law to teach creationism in the public schools.

In Texas, their legislation says this…

“In all fields of science, analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.”

“Analyze and evaluate the evidence regarding formation of simple organic molecules and their organization into long complex molecules having information such as the DNA molecule for self-replicating life…analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell.”

What does this new legislation say? Let’s take a look!

“Public school authorities and administrators must permit teachers to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in a given course.“

We know that militant Darwinists have elevated evolution to a cult rather than science. Why? They want to formulate the students opinions which favor evolution, the last thing they want is students doubting evolution while learning about it.

Live Science, Larry O’Hanlon called the new legislation anti-science! He writes…

“Anti-science bills are popping up like daisies after a spring shower. Five bills in four states have been introduced with the opening of state legislatures across the United States. All of the bills are aimed at undermining the teaching of biology and physical science — specifically, evolution and climate change — in public schools.” 

Where in the bill does it target specifically, evolution and global warming? Any fair-minded reader can acknowledge when reading the wording in the new legislation that it contains nothing about the Bible, evolution, creation, or “climate change.”  

Like the guardian, Larry O’Hanlon lies and then turns into a conspiracy…

“It is almost identical language in all of the bills,” said Rosenau. “It’s a package of bills that we’ve been tracking since the 2004 ‘Academic Freedom’ bill.” That bill, which was passed into law, was based on language generated by the Discovery Institute, which has long pushed for the inclusion of biblical creationism and pseudo-scientific “intelligent design” into science classes in public schools.”

The Discovery Institute? They didn’t write the bills! They endorse the bills no question about that, and they also give legal advice to lawmakers (when asked) in order to avoid legal challenges. The Discovery Institute doesn’t endorse using the Bible in public schools either. The modern intelligent movement is more like theistic evolution than creationism but does have valid scientific arguments against evolution. Also, The Discovery Institute doesn’t even endorse intelligent design being taught in the public schools!

Larry O’Hanlon and others who concoct a conspiracy story by using fallacies is because creationism cannot be taught legally in public schools so therefore they lie about objective critical thinking legislation, creationism, and intelligent design teaching concepts from the Bible.

What about this whole concept of having students having the option of objectively questioning all theories which includes evolution? Paleoanthropology like cosmology is riddled with an enormous amount of speculation. Take Neandertal man, evolutionists painted a picture of this ancient tribe as being sub-human, communicated with grunts, spent most of his time sitting in a cave with not much talent to speak of but showcased him as being “so-dimwitted.”. Creationists for years challenged that idea. It lacked scientific evidence while mainly relying on speculation for its facts.

But new discoveries have put Paleoanthropology to shame and confirmed creationists arguments!

A) Research has shown that stone tool technologies invented by modern humans from the past were no more efficient than the ones produced by Neanderthal man.

B) Broad use of land resources with scheduling resource use by the seasons.

C) Neandertal’s genome showed modern humans and Neanderthals have very little differences. “…new research published online May 6 (2010) in the journalScience reveals that we differ hardly at all.”

D) Europeans and Asians share about 1% to 4% of their nuclear DNA with Neanderthals, indicating that there was substantial interbreeding that went on between modern man and Neanderthals. This is very important evidence which blows away the story used within evolution because when species can interbreed then they are the same species!

E) A research team back in 2008, had examined shells that were used as containers to mix and store pigments. Black sticks of the pigment manganese, which may have been used as body paint by Neanderthals, have previously been discovered in Africa. The discovery lead researchers to think that Neanderthal man is not “so-dimwitted” as previously suggested.

Even gravity is questioned because of dark matter! One scientist told me, of course, questioning is allowed. However, just by looking at the fight that is going on with these various bills over the years, any fair-minded reader would know, questioning explanations based on evolution is not allowed but rather discouraged.

Scientists are not infallible, planetary scientists predict a whole bunch of things in our solar system but when directly observed from a space craft, their predictions are way off! Is it good for science to hold on to theories without questioning like a cult? No! Science progresses, evolution digresses which taints the practice of the scientific method!

The Mystery of Fossilized Whales In A Desert

Paleontologists were filled with enormous excitement and joy when 80 whales were discovered in the Chile desert.  They deemed it to be quite unusual and rare. Chilean paleontologist Mario Suarez on the excavation, said the mammals died more or less around the same time, then continued with his own spin on history with others coming up with their own while claiming the whales died 2 million to 7 million years ago.

A question was asked, “how did all these whales get fossilized in a desert about a half mile from the ocean?” The problem with evolutionists in trying to answer such a question comes from their rejection of considering a global flood. The discovery of whale fossils being buried in a desert also makes the story about evolution more complex. Other reports suggested that the state the earth’s coastlines were much lower back then. So which is it? The earth’s coastlines cannot be both in the story of evolution. But that certainly could happen to the coastlines with a global flood which explains where the whales lay!  This incredible find is quite remarkable for Christians as it confirms the Biblical account of Noah’s Flood!

When the earth was covered with water, the whales where able swim to this location, but when the water receded as a result of the raising of the continents where the floodwaters flowed into the ocean, they got trapped and thus a rapid burial took place. This same occurrence was responsible for sea shells being deposited at elevations that are much too high for ocean life to ever had existed accept that a flood deposited them! Just like in another location in South America, not far from Chile where fossils like a completely articulated  whale, except for one missing flipper, and a damage front skull with bones being incredibly preserved in a place where ocean life could not have existed!

The evidence for a large-scale catastrophe is overwhelmingly strong as some research scientists have reported. Since creation scientists and non-scientists take the global flood as an plausible event that happened, conclusion consist of the fossil layers to have been deposited mostly during this event. Most biblical geologists accept that the standard geological column represents the general order of deposition during the Flood, with some of the uppermost parts of the column being deposited in the 4,300-year period afterwards. The mystery created by evolutionists is not really a mystery after all but rather an amazing event that confirms the Bible!

The Opisthotonic Death Pose In Fossils

From tiny to enormous from all over the globe, researchers have discovered these amazing fossils with a similar pattern known as the “opisthotonic death pose” but a question remains with this pose for secular palaeontologists. What caused it?

New Scientist writes…

“When palaeontologists are lucky enough to find a complete dinosaur skeleton – whether it be a tiny Sinosauropteryx or an enormous Apatosaurus – there’s a good chance it will be found with its head thrown backwards and its tail arched upwards – technically known as the opisthotonic death pose. No one is entirely sure why this posture is so common, but Alicia Cutler and colleagues from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, think it all comes down to a dip in the wet stuff.”

This is not entirely accurate, when one rules out a phenomenon, it causes unnecessary mysteries that require a story rather than where the evidence leads. The bias that is being referred to is the rejection of a global flood on earth but without logical inferences. However, scientists have suggested that the phenomenon (global flood) could have happened on another planet like Mars.

Back on earth, Alicia Cutler and her colleagues at Brigham Young University used chickens for dessication and dunking and discovered a drowning effect where they immediately went into the characteristic opisthotonic death pose. This of course is proof of a global flood phenomenon.

In other research news, paleontologist from University of Rhode Island wanted these particular fossils (with the  opisthotonic  death pose) to be buried in a sandstorm rather than drowning but later admitted that these 15 Protoceratops juveniles were rapidly buried in order to be preserved in such great detail.

In PLoS One…“In the fossilized skin samples, the researchers can see not only the animal’s scales, but also imprints of the protein fibers that made up its skin.”

For a century now, researchers have discovered various fossils with a similar pattern not just in certain localities but all over the world that continue to discover these particular fossils that contain the “opisthotonic death pose” and the global flood inference is the best explanation, there is no need of turning it into some sort of cult religion of a secret mystery for future storytelling.

Creationism’s Predictions vs Evolution’s Predictions

Creationism predicts genetic entropy in nature, which means the DNA for humans was much better with the ancients than it is today while evolution predicts gains in function with the purpose of enhancing fitness. There was a study recently with Vitamin C which is interesting, because humans have lost the ability to manufacture it, so it must be obtained through a diet. And we are not the only ones, certain bats, and certain birds, some fish, guinea pigs and anthropoid have also lost the ability to manufacture Vitamin C.

The study was focused on why this has happened, in PLoS they say, “The ability to synthesize Vc has been reported in many ancestral vertebrate lineages, suggesting the ability for de novo synthesis is ancient.” Nowhere in the paper do the authors explain for the most part on how Vc emerged in the first place such as gains in function within various transitional forms. Rather, the paper mentions quite a bit on loss of function.

“Interestingly, ancestral sequence reconstruction exhibits a stepwise mutation pattern (figure 4) that starts around the time when the tested bat species first evolved from a common ancestor around 58 mya.”

“The ancestor of all bats maintains most of the original Laurasiatheria gene form (with only two mutations) after divergence with non-bat Laurasiatheria species; the ancestor of Hipposideridae, Rhinolophidae, and Megadermatidae (origin around 52 mya) has 3 mutations; the ancestor of Hipposideridae and Rhinolophidae (origin around 39 mya) has 4 mutations; the ancestor of Pteropodidae (origin around 23 mya) has 7 mutations; and the ancestor of the recently emerged Pteropus bats (around 3 mya) have 13 mutations, hence showing a stepwise accumulation of mutations during bat GULO evolution.”

They assume the evolutionary dating, but all this is showing is how many mutations a species had rather than gains that transforms the animal into a bat, what they are showing is the number of mutations with loss in function. Is this really evolution? Wouldn’t it be better for the body to already have the supplement instead of having to obtain it through diet? If any thing, the prediction of evolution would be the other way around. All this study consists of mutations taking away function. Their answer, well the humans and animals can eat, so it wasn’t necessary to manufacture the supplement.  It is interesting to note, the paper mentions, “the ancestor of all bats” but there is no common ancestor of bats! They just assume it because where is it? The oldest bat fossil is one hundred percent bat!

In another study from last year, Peter A. Lind, Otto G. Berg, and Dan I. Andersson from Uppsala University conducted an experiment on Salmonella bacterium which was published in the journal of science in November 2010. Their focus here was to come up with new insights on how evolution increases fitness. What surprised evolutionists about this experiment, the mutations caused a loss in fitness rather than an increase in fitness which also confirms the creationist prediction of genetic entropy in nature!

In another paper in Nature, “Experimental evolution reveals resistance to change” where it says…

“Experimental evolution systems allow the genomic study of adaptation, and so far this has been done primarily in asexual systems with small genomes, such as bacteria and yeast.  Here we present whole-genome resequencing data from Drosophila melanogaster populations that have experienced over 600 generations of laboratory selection for accelerated development.”  We conclude that, at least for life history characters such as development time, unconditionally advantageous alleles rarely arise, are associated with small net fitness gains or cannot fix because selection coefficients change over time.”

Science continues to confirm genetic entropy in nature and scientists are now taking a look at on how they they could restore the body being able to make  Vitamin C again. “The gene encoding GULO in guinea pigs and humans has become a pseudogene.” Wouldn’t that be great? No more having to ingest Vitamin C anymore!

Comets Delivering Water To Earth?

There are many problems with Astrobiology, in fact one could question its science vitality with the expansion of knowledge. Like in any false religion, they take a particular part of Scripture out of context and then build a whole doctrine around it.  As a result, they invent rescue explanations in order to preserve the doctrine. In Astrobiology, we see that also with the invented notion of  comets at one point in time delivering water to earth.

After many comets falsifying their story, one comet was discovered to have a D/H ratio that closely resembled the oceans on earth. It was hailed as a confirmation on their hypothesis. Astrobiology Magazine writes…

“However, the new results also raise new questions. Until now, scientists assumed that the distance of a body’s origin from the Sun correlated to the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio in its water. The farther away this origin lies from the Sun, the larger this ratio should be. With a “birth place” within the Kuiper belt and thus well beyond the orbit of Neptune, Hartley 2, however, seems to violate this rule.”

“Either the comet originated in greater proximity to the Sun than we thought”, says Hartogh, “or the current assumptions on the distribution of deuterium have to be reconsidered.” And maybe Hartley 2 is a so-called Trojan that originated close to Jupiter and could never overcome its gravitational pull.”

While the discovery raises more questions than answers, does one comet among many others confirm their hypothesis? No! Only if you assume it to be true in the first place  then any tiny indication would be a confirmation. And yes, they are also trying to justify using taxpayers money for this particular research in tough economic times. So why are secular scientists searching for water on comets? After all, they reject the Bible that the earth was formed out of water and by water, creating a story that suggests dust baked from the sun clumped together over a massive amount of time that eventually formed the planet.

Then hot lava dominated the surface making it impossible for liquid water to exist. Tests also have been done on the dust story in the lab but those tests have failed to produce evidence for their formation of planets. So what credible evidence is there? None, it’s the only popular story secular scientists have came come up with that avoids special creation.

This is why there is a huge interest among planetary scientists to find water on comets. It needs to show how the earth became habitable for life that doesn’t conflict with its other story. But this discovery of one comet and the belief that comets delivered water to earth does in fact open a can of worms. Planetary scientists have to invent some sort of explanation on how comets were careful enough in not destroying the earth’s atmosphere,  or how oceans remained intact when huge comets hit the earth.

All this speculation doesn’t really expand any knowledge in science. Its not observable (we can go back in time to watch the event happen nor are they any eyewitness reports), its not testable nor repeatable but rather it contains nothing more than mere speculation. One comet certainly out of many doesn’t verify it either.

Why Are Lobbists Against Being Critical About Evolution?

Back in 2008, Louisiana passed a law that was very controversial in the minds of some, which states the following…

C.  A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board unless otherwise prohibited by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

D.  This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.

The battle then turned to Texas science standards. The focus was on the strengths-and-weaknesses requirement for evolution and other theories. Lobbist Eugenie Scott and others lead the charge to remove the clause. They were successful! The language was removed but with something way better than anyone expected and to the horror of Scott! The new clause states as follows…

“in all fields of science, analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.”

“Analyze and evaluate the evidence regarding formation of simple organic molecules and their organization into long complex molecules having information such as the DNA molecule for self-replicating life…analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell.”

This was one of the most important victories on how science should be taught in the public schools and a major blow to the opposition. Why would the likes of lobbist Eugenie Scott and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology who voted to not hold their convention in Louisiana as a result of the bill being passed, would be so against it? Why would there be opposition for the likes of Don McLeroy who was chairmen on the state board of education in Texas? Why were there attempts to kill his nomination?

“Shapleigh said there is a perception that McLeroy is using the chairmanship of the State Board of Education as a bully pulpit for promoting his religious point-of-view and pushing it into the public arena.

The nomination was eventually voted upon, and Don McLeroy was not confirmed as chairmen. So why the fuss? Obviously part had to do with critical thinking and the other part had to do with a creationist pushing for its teaching to students rather than an evolutionist. But doesn’t critically analyze mean to criticize and if one criticizes evolution in light of this three-year law, does this mean public schools like in Louisiana and Texas now teaches the overturning of evolution’s status as a ‘theory’ by consensus? No! So why then was there and still continues to be so much opposition that even lead to the removal of a well qualified chairmen?

Eugenie Scott tries to give her own rational on why students at the public schools cannot be taught critical thinking when it comes to evolution…This was posted in youtube on July 7, 2011…

In the video at 46:29, she says…“Okay, what else can you not do? I have a little asterisk here. You cannot teach evidence against evolution. There have been some court decisions that have talked about this including Kitzmiller, but there has not been a really clean test of this idea of teaching evidence against evolution…”

Later on in the video she clarifies why you can’t teach evidence against evolution, “There is no evidence against evolution…Nothing out there is running a big neon light saying, ‘Whoa! Evolution fails here! We have to toss it out!’ But “critical thinking” which has been passed has nothing to do with that statement. And it can’t be replaced by creationism because it’s outlawed in the public schools!

So the only thing she can get paid for in this battle is being afraid on what students believe in evolution if they are taught to be more critical about it and find out it’s not as solid as they try to make you believe. But like one scientist told me in here, scientists are always critical of “theories” and finds no logical reason why students can’t be either. The fact of the matter is, Christians are way more tolerate of other people’s beliefs than what is demonstrated with the creationism vs evolution debate.

The fact of the matter is, it took a creationist to get the best science standards which allows students to critically analyze every theory including evolution!