There is a segment on Shubin’s work, and the prediction of when and where fossils with features transitional between fish and amphibians should be found, in the PBS NOVA documentary on the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case.
Edit: the segment starts at about 41:00 into the linked video.
I would be thankful if you could give precise data (time, location, size of flooded area) about these “local floods” you are referring to:
“a severe local flood (around 2900 B.C.)”
“numerous local floods”.
Actually that is exactly what they do. They make the predictions, and then paleontologists go and look for what is predicted. That is how Tiktaalik was found.
I read this in his book, “Your Inner Fish” which is a great read by the way.
Another video which talks about finding Tiktaalik is on youtube
Hi Tas -
Apparently the young earth creationist worldview has not carefully considered the physics connected with the formation of the Himalayas, because you have not been able to provide any evidence of such when we have discussed the issue.
You also stated that you agree with the critique of the RATE report’s inability to explain how earth-melring heat associated with hypothesized acceleration of nuclear decay was dissipated without leaving a trace. You claimed that there are promising alternative YEC explanations for radiometric dating results. When I have asked for those explanations, though, all I have heard is crickets.
Do you think that I am asking too much, Tas? Are you hoping that I will just accept your fine-sounding rhetoric without investigating these scientific issues?
Thanks,
Chris Falter
Actually, I was quoting Pete Enns’ BL blog post that was in the link I provided. A quick Google search turned up an article at the NCSE website on The Flood: Mesopotamian Archaeological Evidence. It takes a skeptical angle and is from 1988, but it lists the usual suspects for such an event: Ur 3500 BC, Kish 3000 BC and 2600 BC (two floods), Shuruppak 2900 BC. I’m sure a little digging would turn up more info.
Tas, I think you’ll want to get that book by Brown on the “days” of creation: it’s really the definitive treatment.
You mention Sarfati’s book in the same connection, and I agree that he usually handled the history of interpreting early Genesis very well in “Refuting Compromise.” I also agree with him that Hugh Ross’ presentation of similar material is not very accurate in many instances. Kudos to Sarfati for much more careful work on that topic. I own the first edition of Sarfati (2004) and have written about it at least twice for BL, most recently here: https://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/refuting-compromise-the-troubling-tone-of-creationism. You will see some of my disagreements with him there.
By far, the biggest problem I have with his book is what I regard as an unacceptable tone and overall attitude, indicated by both the title and the subtitle. He seems to think that anyone who uses their brain and takes a different interpretation of a given passage, partly on the basis of some idea or source outside the Bible, is necessarily “compromising” biblical authority, where “compromise” is not meant as a compliment or even simply as a neutral description of a hermeneutical strategy. This particular attitude, I dare say, is all too common among YEC proponents. I highlighted this for our readers in another place where I wrote about Sarfati, here (near the end): Old-Earth (Progressive) Creationism: History and Beliefs - BioLogos. Readers should not miss the exchange (quoted there) between William Barrick and Jack Collins on this very matter.
Perhaps others would assess my work differently, Tas, but I think I’ve devoted more than 40 years of my life to investigating Christianity and science–including a great deal of time devoted to investigating the narrower topic of science and the Bible. I hope I’ve done my own thinking, but I’d be the first to say that almost no one can operate in an intellectual vaccum, especially on topics such as these.
I share your desire to stimulate individual investigation and thinking by our readers. I honestly wish, very much, that AiG would let me drop in on their site and play the same role you are playing here. Perhaps it’s fair to say that we take a different attitude toward that, than they do?
We have a big difference of opinion here, Tas. I think the interpretation of early Genesis is an enormous problem in YEC circles. The fact that (as far as I can tell) YEC authors don’t believe that their interpretation actually is an interpretation of the text, is an enormous problem. They seem to think that the Bible simply interprets itself, that the “plain meaning” of Scripture is almost self-evident, such that nearly all efforts to read the text carefully in its cultural and historical context are somehow “compromising” the biblical message. Perhaps this phenomenon is even more pronounced today than it was a few decades ago, but I’m less sure about that part.
IMO, however, it’s irresponsible not to acknowledge that one’s reading of a given text constitutes an interpretation of that text. I’m not suggesting for a minute, that anything goes, or that all interpretations have the same plausibility. However, I am suggesting that it’s a grand, unjustified presumption, to claim that we can be sufficiently certain of how to read many biblical texts (including early Genesis) with such a high level of confidence, that all other readings of that text constitute spiritually dangerous “compromise.” IMO, that attitude in itself is more likely to be spiritually dangerous, since it give lay people a powerful signal: if you ever find yourself persuaded that a different interpretation makes more sense, then you have started down the slippery slope to atheism.
Since I am in this category myself, Tas, let me give a personal response.
First, let me contextualize my comments. I find my institutional home (Messiah College) in many ways ideal. I probably could be teaching at a very secular place: early in my academic career, I had a visiting position at Vanderbilt and I was on the short list (i.e., was invited to campus for an interview, something that happens only as the penultimate step in hiring a new faculty member) for jobs at two Ivy League universities and one major public research university. I declined an invitation to interview at another public university, where (they said on the phone) I was the top candidate. Several years later, I had a one-year visiting research position at Penn (not one of the two Ivies I just mentioned). And, several more years after that, I was approached about a pending full professorship at yet another research university, but the position never got advertised after strict budgetary restrictions had to be implemented. So, I think it’s realistic to say that I don’t teach at an evangelical college b/c that’s the only type of place where I would ever be hired. (You haven’t implied this, Tas, but I sometimes hear people say things like that about faculty at places like Messiah. So, I start by getting that out of the way.)
Why do I find this such a good fit? My interest is primarily the history of Christianity and science. Not only to I get to teach about that here–a lot, which I like–I get institutional support (both financial and emotional) for focusing on aspects of that history in my research. Even though a lot of my stuff is published in regular academic venues, I don’t have to worry about colleagues undervaluing the specific topics I choose to investigate. That could very well be a problem at a given secular institution, but certainly not at all of them, since I am an affiliate fellow (a certain type of formal faculty association) at one of the major graduate programs in history of science. But, this happens to some secular scholars too, for different reasons, so it’s not unique to Christian scholars like me. Still, it just doesn’t come up at Messiah–and it shouldn’t, given the nature of my work. I actually get rewarded for directing some of my work at “real people” (like readers of BL), rather than directing all of it at fellow nerds. And, I get rewarded for wanting to help the body of Christ think hard about science. (None of this means that my conclusions are correct, but it does mean that people want me to keep thinking and writing about such things, whereas that might not be true at many secular institutions.)
I’ve never been a YEC, Tas, not at any point in my life. I’m old enough to remember when the YEC view was not the default option for so many conservative congregations, and I watched it basically take over large segments of the evangelical world. The “problem” you refer to (Christian academics who don’t interpret early Genesis along the lines of Ken Ham) is one I am fully aware of, but I don’t regard it as a problem at all. IMO, the YEC movement is born more from fear of secularism and religious modernism (I am not and never have been a “modernist”) than from confidence in biblical truth (which does not equate with Ham’s interpretation of Genesis). It’s also born from a rigid, literalistic hermeneutic that someone like Augustine or John Calvin or B. B. Warfield would never have embraced, a hermeneutic that insists that all biblical statements about nature or human events must be “true,” in a manner that conforms to our modern (post-biblical) sensibilities about scientific or historical truth.
Given all of this (as I see it), Tas, it’s not so hard to understand why many academics at evangelical colleges and seminaries approach origins differently from YECs–you are right about that part, despite that fact that there are several dozen institutions where affirmation of YEC is required in order to be on the faculty. Many of us really do want institutional homes where we have genuine academic freedom to be encouraged to explore questions that many secular universities ignore or trivialize, coupled with genuine academic freedom to do our own thinking, whether or not Ham and company agree with our conclusions. I don’t object to Ham, or any of my colleagues here or elsewhere, concluding that the earth is just a few thousand years old: he and they must conclude what makes the most sense to them. However, I strongly object to Ham, or any of my colleagues, imposing their own conclusions about origins and the Bible on me, either by name-calling (“compromiser” is just one such term) or by formal strictures on employment involving these matters. It’s our job to be the church at thought. We don’t have to do this particular job, but if an institution wants us to do it, we must be allowed to do it properly, by doing our own thinking.
I think your reference to 2900 BCE is a reference to Wooley’s famous report on the UR flood. It was a huge flood event … but quite limited in scope. Which is why this flood makes for a good inspiration … but not a good historical linkage.
Really, any flood would serve as inspiration to some degree. But the point of writing a story about a giant flood would be to explain substantial flood silt exposed while digging a foundation for a new building and such.
It would be a dramatic find (to those who understand what they are looking at)… and the desire to write a story about a really large flood deposit would probably be inevitable to any scribe or priest wondering how he can entertain the in-laws for the weekend!
Exactly right. By teaching their children that Genesis is either literal truth or else a lie, YEC believers set their children up for failure. The full damage they have done will not be seen for another generation, but make no mistake about it – YEC has pushed far more people away from the faith that it has attracted, and one day there will be an accounting.
And I, for one, have benefited from your efforts. Keep thinking, keep writing, keep speaking. The body of Christ needs more like you …
It is absolutely driven by fear. They have forgotten the word to Isaiah:
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
I’d just like to say that it’s good to see you contributing to this thread. One of my big frustrations when I read articles by YEC leaders is that I keep feeling like they’re trying to spoon-feed us. YEC sites usually either don’t have a comments section at all, or else the comments are very heavily moderated to make everyone look like either a yes-man or a blatant mouth-breathing troll. To see you actively participating on the BioLogos forum here as a member of the YEC leadership, is encouraging as it breaks that mould.
However, I’d like to reiterate – and expand on – this point that @gbrooks9 has made here:
This is a mistake that I see YEC apologists making over and over again – not providing a link but merely saying “You can search Google/creation.com/whatever for more information.” Telling someone to search the web may be an appropriate response if they are coming to you with unsolicited requests for technical support, but it is not an appropriate response if you are trying to back up your own claims. This is especially important for YECs – if you are serious about refuting the frequently-raised charges of quote mining, you need to be going the extra mile in trying to make your citations as clear, transparent and accessible as possible.
Not only this, but I have seen those who are in the sciences that recognize invalid arguments and false or fantastic ideas particularly about the age of the earth, and who then reject the either the gospel message altogether or else drop out of fellowship due to the embracing of the local church with that sort of thing. I like to think that those of us who have a bit more spiritual maturity can look past those issues but some people cannot.
Actually, Tas, paleontologists do make predictions about as yet unknown fossils.
Famously, Lyell (who believed in a paleontological steady state, such that all major kinds of animals were present in all geological periods, except for the recent creation of humans) predicted that we would eventually discover many of the “missing pages” in the paleontological “book” (his metaphor), and then we would see that fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, and amphibians have always been present–despite many individual types becoming extinct. Just as famously, Darwin used the same metaphor to argue that those missing pages would eventually show the existence of many transitional forms.
Lyell was plainly mistaken–no one doubts this today–but Darwin was right (IMO). Indeed now we do have many obvious examples of transitional forms, starting with archaeopteryx back in Darwin’s own day. Whales, as you know, have recently caused much interest, owing to spectacular discoveries in Egypt and elsewhere.
https://biologos.org/blogs/archive/series/evidences-for-evolution
See especially, this personal story by someone who specializes in whale fossils: From Young-Earth Creationist to Whale Evolution Expert: My Story - BioLogos (" Transitional fossils are becoming increasingly abundant. They have the intermediate anatomical characteristics we would predict, and we find them when and where we would expect to.")
For some reason many ID people don’t accept these conclusions–I should think that, unless ID is in principle opposed to common ancestry (most ID people say it’s not), they’d be open to seeing these new fossils as transitional forms. I leave further analysis of that confused and confusing stance for another day. OECs and YECs often insist that such discoveries of transitional forms don’t really fill “gaps” in evolutionary history; rather (they say), such discoveries simply create more gaps–those between the new species and previously known species. I think it was John Morris (son of Henry Morris and a former president of ICR) who said that it would take 100,000 transitional forms to persuade him of common ancestry. When is enough, enough? That’s a wholly unreasonable stance, IMO.
Mr. Tas Many have done this. When i was YEC i read creation.com a lot. I read AIG.
But being the paranoid kid i am. (Yes i am a kid, 15, 16 in june) I investigate everything i read, Everything i believe. I did that very thing with your site and found many errors. So of course i began searching and searching your site for answers, And all i got were fractions of answers. Ignoring huge problems. When i asked for some clarification your respondents gave me the same old links i had read 30 times over and over. And in a mail about flood geology, You gave me an ultimatum.
Either you believe in the Bible, Gods infallible innerant word. Or the insignificant ramblings of sinful humans who ignore God with all their being. So in short: You either stay YEC or you can’t be a Christian. When you say so many geologists see so much evidence when they are pointed to it is just a lousy appeal to authority. If you can indeed get so many geologists to see the evidence for a flood. Why can’t you make a 15 year old kid see it? But instead tell him to blindly follow whatever he is told. I have spent alot of evenings looking into it all. But i know that not every kid will do this. And they will give up their belief. If only i could show them how different it actually is.
Yes, mature Christians can overlook disagreement about the interpretation of Genesis, but you can’t expect unbelievers to choose “God’s word over man’s word,” as the YEC mantra puts it, when they don’t know Christ. The situation reminds me a bit of Paul’s discussion of tongues in 1 Cor. 14:23,
“So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?”
Except nowadays, the YEC church comes together and everyone asserts that the universe was created in six 24-hr days, the Earth is 6000 years old, Noah preserved the animals from a worldwide flood, etc., and inquirers and unbelievers come in and do exactly what Paul said – decide that you are out of your minds.
I hope I don’t ruin it for you guys, but I was quite surprised to read this …
… followed by this …
A prominent person in YEC leadership issues an ultimatum to a 15-yr-old. Really? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, because this is the approach of their entire movement, and it is driving an entire generation of young people away from Christ.
If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!
Apparently you haven’t read one of my key requirements above.
I have no plan on doing your googling for you. If you don’t have time to provide the link yourself, I certainly don’t have the time to give a hoot what you are talking about.
I am quite energetic, even zealous, about providing links to articles, and specific references to book pages, and the like. If you can’t return the favor, you are certainly wasting my time - - and probably dozens of other readers as well.
Good luck to ya.
All of Genesis 2-11, flood included, can be understood as Semitic history. Where Walton got the idea that a local flood in Mesopotamia was recounted in worldwide terms in Genesis is beyond me, but it falls into his perspective, Adam as “archetype.” He can’t admit to Adam and Noah being actual historical personalities because he signed a statement of faith saying he believed all of humanity sprang from Adam. An actual Adam at around 7,000 years ago assures us he was not the progenitor of our species with 200,000 years on earth and precursors going back millions of years. So what Walton really believes is known only to him, but he is hemmed in by the university that employs him - Wheaton. The flood also can not be a true local event as judgment upon the descendants of Adam in Waltonese for the same reason, Noah becomes a restriction point through which the entire human race must pass if all of humanity sprang from Adam and the biblical account is taken as human history. The problem is Waltons and he inflicts it on the rest of us.
I don’t understand the insistence on the flood being worldwide. The phrase traditionally translated ‘whole world’ kol eretz could just as easily be translated ‘whole land’ and the description refer to a local flood. Even the phrase ‘under the whole heaven’ is used elsewhere to describe local events like the inhabitants of Canaan trembling in fear at the approaching Israelites Deut 2:25. I suspect to the original writers the phrase ‘under the whole heaven’ would simply have meant from horizon to horizon, that the water for the flood stretched as far as the eye could see.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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