Huh??? Why on earth would anyone assume that an ancestor “would have been neither white nor black but rather something in between”? The San people of Nambia are hardly what I’d call “in-between” in terms of features. (I don’t know if the video features a San but we know from genomic studies that the San are the most representative of our ancient ancestry.)
When I hear of “in-between” ancestors it sounds like someone who has been raised on straw man anti-evolution arguments based on “half-duck, half-crocodile hybrids” and similar.
Or perhaps I’ve misunderstood the comment. @johnZ, why do you assume “in-between” white and black?
I remember when people complained that depictions of ancient ancestors as European-looking people were racist. (“Are only whites representative of what it means to be human?”) So I suppose the opposite complaint is a reminder that if one wants to play the race card, one can call absolutely anything “racist”.
Refreshing? Interesting choice of words. I was about to cite ISIS as a refreshing example of those who challenge western values and Christianity but decided against it.
When the Creation.com article was brought to my attention, I had two thoughts: (1) Has someone at Creation.com been pranked? (2) Why are so many YEC origins-ministry website articles becoming so shrill and desperate-sounding? (Yes, even more so than usual.) I think there is very real fear that the opening of Ken Ham’s Ark Park is going to be the “high water mark” of YECism and that the general public—including much of the Christian public—is losing patience with science-denialism and the anti-evidence sideshows. (Indeed, when ChristianityToday readers said with incredible consensus that Bill Nye won the debate, the writing was on the wall. When asked what would change his mind, Nye said “Evidence” while Ken Ham said nothing would change his mind.) Ham’s Ark Park is neither a floating ark nor even a large collection of two-and-two of every animal kind. (As always, Ham’s “baraminologists” refuse to define the created “kinds” but only insist that they explain everything about the biosphere today.) Visitors to the Ark Park are going to find a small petting zoo and a large ark-shaped building which says little more than the Creation Museum already says. I’m neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I am going to predict that many visitors are going to ask—after shelling out well over a hundred bucks for admission and parking—“What’s the point of this?” Meanwhile, despite many millions of dollars spent each years, neither AIG nor CMI nor ICR have sponsored any meaningful “creation science” discoveries. Whodathought?
CMI/Creation.com claims to “employ more science PhDs than any other Christian organization” and for several years now three of my Bible.and.Science.Forum associates have asked them (1) how many science PhDs that would be, and (2) how that compares to the #2 Christian organization employer of Science PhDs. The boast keeps appearing all over the Creation.com website and CMI materials but all efforts to quantify and source those statistics has either been rebuffed by them or ignored. That does not speak well for them. If the statement is true, why do they evade the question? We even tried posting the questions to the Facebook pages, where we were told, “Consult the ABOUT US page of the website” which contains no such information—and even states that many of the people shown there are volunteers or occasional speakers, not employees.
Creation.com will always read like propaganda and not like an evidence-based research institute because they understand their mission and know where their best opportunities for survival exist. Going on the attack against Biologos et al is the best way to energize donors. The worst things that could ever happen to Democrat and Republican fund-raising campaigns would be the demise of people like Rush Limbaugh and Hillary Clinton—because fund-raising depends upon people being afraid of a perceived enemy. Young Earth Creationist ministries survive and feed upon the fears they must create in order to survive. In today’s brand of YECism, it is a matter of Survival of the “Fear-ists”.