21 juni 2007

Last week a Dutch national Christian newspaper reported on a document drafted by the Council of Europe: The dangers of creationism in education. Drawn up by a socialist reporter of the Council, it is a scaremongering document using heavily loaded terms.

It literally says that creationism is a threat to human rights and toscientific advances. There is a war going on, they say, against the reasonable theory of evolution.

The document is published on June 6th and will be discussed from 25-29 June in the plenary session of the council.

The statements made in the document urgently ask for a reaction since the creationists viewpoint is completely misrepresented and the phrasing used pictures creationists in a very negative, unreasonable and unjustified way. Therefore you will find the original document below with:

comments in purple given by the Dutch Werkgroep In Genesis, Frank van de Laar.

The dangers of creationism in education (Doc. 11297)

First of all we’d like to point out that the word attack here is very suggestive. It’s not a matter of attack at all. The fact is that the theory of evolution is being refuted by creationists both from a theological and scientific point of view. Moreover the theory of evolution is only a central theory for our understanding of the Universe and of life on earth from a humanist fundamentalists point of view, which excludes creation even before having looked at the scientific evidence.

This is a very general statement given without any proof and neglecting the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence against evolution as published by creationist scientists. This statement also fails to mention the many examples of so-called scientific reasoning that proved to be complete wrong or inadequate such as Piltdown man, which after a period of over 40 years of scientific studies turned out to be a fraud.

We fully agree to promote scientific knowledge and thus to present all the scientific facts in scientific education, both those that support as well as those that refute evolution.

We are very glad that the council of Europe is concerned about human rights and we fully share this concern when looking at the many, many victims in socialist and communists European countries in the recent past. However we strongly disagree that creationism is a threat to human rights as we believe from a Christian point of view that the Creator of heaven and earth is a loving God, who more than any human respects human rights and thus has given humanity the freedom to choose as they like.

The success of creationism can only be explained as a result of the failure of human evolution theories to properly explain the origin of the universe, the earth and life on earth. Therefore the spread of creationism is a noteworthy and healthy response to failing scientific paradigm’s over the last century.

This is simply not true. Due to scientific censorship creationists are forced to publish their information in own books, magazines and websites, which clearly do not have education in public schools as their prime target. Creationists however are seriously worried about the one-sided and sometimes clearly proven wrong or outdated view of evolution in public schools and we would be glad to see the creationist point of view accurately and correctly presented in education.

It is remarkable that no reference is given here to any objective analysis, but we are quite confident that any analysis possibly referred to will be shown not to be objective at all.

Let us quote dr. Deres Ager here, a well respected and prominent geologist, who when talking about the uniformitarian scientific view states “We have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed. Brainwashed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme or what might be termed catastrophic processes." So here is an evolutionists scientist who at least honestly admits that the so-called patiently built up knowledge on geology turned out to be a dogma.

It seems to us that a creationists censorship as proposed in this document is a clear example of humanist and socialists own intolerance against other beliefs and ideals. Therefore as said we plead for presenting both the scientific facts in favour as well as against the evolutionary view. We believe our children have the right to hear all the scientific facts and not just the one sided view that is currently promoted in education.

The word dangerous here is totally out of place and very suggestive. The real danger is in the dogmatic and one-sided scientific views on origins as currently presented. At this point we’d like to point out that Ernst Haeckel, a German biologist and a contemporary of Darwin, laid the foundation of racism and imperialism that resulted in Hitler's racist regime. Also note that Stephen Jay Gould a famous evolutionist and anti-creationist wrote “Biological arguments against racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of the theory of evolution."

We more or less agree with this argument except for the last sentence. Great scientists such as Newton and Pascal were creationists, which clearly shows that creationism is not against scientific progress. On the contrary, we believe that God has created a universe that primarily obeys to scientific laws and principles as created in the beginning and worthwhile to discover and describe within a scientific framework. The theory of evolution indeed has nothing to do with divine revelation Moreover it even excludes divine revelation without carefully considering the facts.

All of the above is just as much or even more applicable on the way that the theory of evolution is propagated in secular media and education. Examples of these are National Geographic and Scientific American. This statement fails to mention the excellent scientific work done in for example the RATE project of the Institute for Creation Research as well as the numerous publications from Guillermo Gonzalez in peer-reviewed scientific papers.

This statement is either based on ignorance or deliberately misrepresenting the creationist’s point of view, that does certainly not deny every principle of evolution. Creationism fully acknowledges the genetic laws and the principles of natural selection. These are laws and principles that have been validated with the scientific method and that can be reproduced and verified in the lab. However we do not believe in the molecule to man theory of evolution that is not built on scientific principles and which is not reproducible in the lab, but based on atheistic philosophical principles only.

Once again words are used here like fundamentalism and extremism that are loaded with negative meaning in our society. As Christian creationists we do not want to be and do not feel associated in any way at all with Muslim fundamentalism or extremism. If we believe that the Genesis history as written in the Bible is true, does that make us any more or less fundamentalists than those who insists the theory of evolution is true and who ridicule, ignore or deny any fact that refutes it?

We prefer to speak in terms of a debate rather than a war on the theory of evolution. Once again the author fails to mention explicit facts and occasions. The fact is that advocates or strict creationism believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is rooted in creation and the Fall as recorded in Genesis and thus creationism is of prime importance for properly understanding and accepting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The fact that the majority does accept the theory of evolution is an invalid argument to show that creationism is wrong. History has shown that the majority is seldom right. Moreover the one sided view of evolution as presented over the last decades – starting with children at a very young age - has created a mindset in our culture that considers any other way of thinking as either wrong or ridiculous.

It should be clear at this point that in its currents state of paradigm, the theory of evolution is hampering rather then helping scientific progress. A more balanced and open minded view on the theory of evolution and its limitations in education and science would result in significant cost savings in purely academic biological research without any useful applicable results.

Creationist research based on the scientific method deserves the right to be promoted, published and educated without censorship of any kind.

At this point it is very important to distinguish operational science from the science of origins. The science that allows us to travel to the moon is fundamentally different from the science that determines the age of the moon. If a minor error is made in the first, reality will show immediately and unconditionally that science wasn’t understood or applied in the correct way, that is according to the scientific method. However if a major error is made in the age of the moon, there are no observable consequences at all at least from a materialistic point of view.

We agree that the moral values are at stake here and that evolutionary theories impose a serious threat on those.

Fully agreed so far…

Any scientific fact or fraud that refutes the theory of evolution should be honestly and open presented in education, including those originating from creationists research.

Talking about fundamentalism, this statement seems to promote evolution as the one and only theory, whereas it has been criticized and refuted strongly even within the secular scientific world.

We believe that a declaration like this will seriously hamper scientific progress and promote intolerance on sincere and social aware religious people in our multicultural society.

Here the conclusion is given prior to the considerations which is misleading.

We might equally well say here that it is the birth of anti-creationist movements… But let’s take a look at what Darwin himself says about his theory in his book “on the origin of species:

”Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed.

Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory”.

Geological and paleontological research in the 20th century has clearly shown that the numberless intermediate varieties expected by Darwin as proof of his theory have not been found. Thus his theory of evolution in a broad sense – i.e. from molecule to man or from one species into another - must be rejected.

This representation takes the issue out of the science and into the war of the worldviews. Although we agree that the worldview is certainly relevant, we should not interchange worldview and scientific based arguments in the discussion.

Any creationists will confirm the above. Moreover the complexity and the efficiency of DNA as a information carrying system is astonishing and points to intelligent design simply because information does not and cannot arise spontaneously by natural processes.

Modification is ill-defined in this context. Speaking in terms of gain, loss or duplication of information would be much better to identify the true nature of genetic changes.

Although some variations of an organism can have a greater change to survive in specific environments that doesn’t mean its overall ability to survive is improved. From an information point of view it can be shown that reproduction and natural selection does not add new (DNA) information. On the long term there is a clearly demonstrable loss of information for example as shown by the vitamin C synthesis deficiency in the human DNA. This and other examples points to genetic degeneration rather than evolution.

The word species is ambiguous here as it potentially masks the difference between a true physical common ancestor and a hypothetical common ancestor as supposed by evolution theory. Such an evolutionary bias in terminology will lead to evolution biased conclusions.

We agree that evolution as presented explains how organisms adapt to their environment (by natural selection). But it only partially explains how the diversity of life was formed (by speciation) because variation is limited to the extend present in parent DNA.  Last but not least the shared characteristics of different organisms are equally well or even better explained by a common Intelligent Designer than by a common ancestor.

Palaeontological evidence for evolution is data poor and imagination rich. The evolutionary morphological tree of life consists of many virtual branches without corresponding intermediate species in the fossil record. Many of the alleged transitional forms are based on fragmentary remains, which are therefore open to several interpretations, based on one's axioms. This is illustrated by the following quote from professor Stephen Jay Gould:

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches, the rest is inference."

No creationist denies continental drift, but there is a debate on the time scale on which this has taken place. Anyway continental drift is not an argument that can be considered as evidence for evolution.
The direct observations referred to are primary related to phenotypes and not to genotypes. At the DNA level the differences are negligible.

So-called transitional forms between humans and the common ancestor of apes and humans are regularly trumpeted in the news headlines only to be rejected or disputed later on (without any trumpeting of course). Piltdown man was a fraud, Neanderthalers turned out to be men with a bone disease, Lucy was clearly an ape etc.

Genetic mutations always result in information loss. Although this may results in variations that be advantageous in specific environments, it doesn’t explain the increase of information that is required for molecule to men evolution. All together the results of recombination and mutation at the genetic level – mechanisms which can be validated according to the scientific method - do explain variation within restricted genetic boundaries, but they do not explain cross-boundary variations, which is based on evolutionary assumptions and which has never been validated according to the scientific method.

As said the terminology species and speciation is ambiguous in this context. Labelling of species as “new” when they have a demonstrable common ancestor makes it impossible to distinguish them from other species from which is only speculated that they have a common ancestor.

"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of `seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of `gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (Kitts, David B. - Professor of Geology, University of Oklahoma - "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, Vol. 28, 1974).

Commonality can either be interpreted as a result from a common ancestor or as a result from a common designer. Certain dissimilarities in DNA however plead for the latter rather than the first.

The new species referred to here clearly fall within the boundaries of limited genetic variations and adaptation to specific environments.

The word evolution is once again used ambiguous here and doesn’t allow to distinguish natural but limited variation from alleged variation crossing genetic boundaries that violate Mendel’s law of heredity.

This is a common false argument made by Evolutionists; the random variations of AIDS is not the same as the transmutation of species that Darwin wrote about and that is the basis of macro-evolution. All those little changes aside, AIDS is still AIDS and has not evolved to another life form, which is essentially required for the alleged common ancestry for all life forms.

This is typical example that shows how evolution theory hampers the progress of science. It is well known that resistant bacteria survive under very specific conditions whereas they do not survive normal conditions. This is the reason that so-called hospital acquired bacterial infections simply heal some time after leaving the hospital.

On the contrary, the discovery of DNA is one of the strongest arguments that plead for creation as explained before.

There can be no doubt that evolution from a common ancestor for all lifeforms is based on philosophical assumptions rather than scientific principles.

By definition evolution (of all life forms from a common ancestor) cannot be independently verified and observed as it has (presumably) taken place over billions of years. There are no scientific laws or method that even give a clue about the direction and development of evolution on a long time scale, neither can evolution on such a macroscopic scale be validated or reproduced in the lab.

Censorship of all-but evolution research and publication has taken the form of propaganda, i.e. the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.

This is not true. A growing number of scientists worldwide have expressed their doubts and worries on the theory evolution and their number seems to be growing. Saying that we no longer try to find out whether it has actually taken place is actually admitting that scientists do believe it has taken place and thus makes evolution to a believe system.

This statement only confirms that evolution has become a ruling paradigm in the western world.

All of these dates originate from evolutionary assumptions and are based on selective methods and interpretations. Accepting these dates as proof of evolutionary theory, whereas they are based on evolutionary assumptions is clearly a case of circular reasoning and thus must either be rejected or confirmed by independent methods and measurements. It has clearly been demonstrated in the literature that other methods and measurements do result in completely different (often much younger) ages for the solar system, the geological record and the age of men.

They indeed do present a challenge. It would therefore also be a great challenge for the scientific community today to take up the challenges presented by the creationism and ID movement and refute their arguments on a scientific basis rather then censoring, demonizing, marginalizing or ridiculing them.

This is a completely wrong and misleading representation of the creationist’s viewpoints, no creationists believes that God created each plant or animal species individually as already indicated in previous comments. The example of Galileo is a clear example of how the complete scientific community of those days – like nowadays – rejects and persecutes the viewpoints from a minority, based on their paradigms and social positions, who eventually turned out to be right.

The creationist movement have published numerous articles and arguments often based on secular scientific research to demonstrate the serious shortcomings of evolution theory and that plead for creation. The statement above indicates that the author is either ignorant or deliberately misinterpreting creationism which disqualifies the whole issue raised.

YEC’s do not have any problem with the scientific facts or data, they only have a problem with the evolutionary interpretations of this data, which is quit a different story.

The following quote of genetics professor Richard Lewontin in the New York Review (1997) probably reflects the true nature of this argument:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

It may be clear from our arguments that the creationists and the intelligent design movement do have some sound and reasonable scientific arguments to plead their case.

It would indeed be crucial to have an open and honest debate about the subject rather than applying censorship based on invalid and misleading arguments.

A close investigation of discrepancies in the scientific data has often been the key to scientific progress and discoveries, but here it seems to be labelled as casting doubt and calling into questions the foundations. Good science also means applying the principle of parsimony to scientific models. So if creation or ID based scientific models provide simpler explanations and better predictions than existing ones, they should be seriously considered rather than be thrown away.

The example of the atom given is one based on the scientific method where a model was derived that has strong explanatory and predicting scientific power (note that it is also widely used within creation science). However this is not true for the theory of evolution, which makes this argument a case of comparing apples to oranges.

Evolution on the other hand is trying to explain everything in materialistic terms without even considering the reasonable possibility of creation or intelligent design. It would be like trying to explain that Paley’s watch made itself, which is clearly ridiculous.

At this point we would like to refer to the reports from the RATE group form the Institute of Creation Research and Technical Journal from Creation Ministries International as well as several publications from the discovery institute which contain a lot of research done by well qualified scientists.

Governments have invested billions in subsidizing evolutionary research while at the same time censoring and rejecting any theory opposing the main stream science on origins. Creationist organisations are completely depending on gifts. No wonder there is much more weight on the evolutionary side of the scale. Nevertheless significant progress has been made on the creationists side with minimal means as is clearly illustrated for example by the work of the RATE group, the plate tectonics model of dr. John Baumgardner, the hydro plate model of Walt Brown and the cosmology model from dr. Humpreys, just to mention a few. Compare this with the over 50 years of intensive and costly research on follow-up of the Miller experiment, which has hardly provided any additional insight or progress.

Everything stated above is as well applicable to the beliefs and convictions on evolution from the scientific community. A clear example of this is expressed in this fragment from an open letter to the scientific community in New Scientist (2004) regarding the big bang theory:

Supporters of the big bang theory may retort that these theories do not explain every cosmological observation. But that is scarcely surprising, as their development has been severely hampered by a complete lack of funding. Indeed, such questions and alternatives cannot even now be freely discussed and examined. An open exchange of ideas is lacking in most mainstream conferences. Whereas Richard Feynman could say that "science is the culture of doubt", in cosmology today doubt and dissent are not tolerated, and young scientists learn to remain silent if they have something negative to say about the standard big bang model. Those who doubt the big bang fear that saying so will cost them their funding.

Even observations are now interpreted through this biased filter, judged right or wrong depending on whether or not they support the big bang. So discordant data on red shifts, lithium and helium abundances, and galaxy distribution, among other topics, are ignored or ridiculed. This reflects a growing dogmatic mindset that is alien to the spirit of free scientific inquiry.

Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies. Funding comes from only a few sources, and all the peer-review committees that control them are dominated by supporters of the big bang. As a result, the dominance of the big bang within the field has become self-sustaining, irrespective of the scientific validity of the theory.

The same attitude of the scientific community against creationism is overwhelmingly clear. For the complete statement see: http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

Referring to this book is like referring to National Geographic for scientific facts. These type of books and magazines are meant for popularising and explaining ideas to a wide public and should not be used as scientific references.

Talking about anti-science: What about Haeckels famous fraud about embryonic recapitulation which was already shown to be a fraud more than a century ago and which is still being used in today’s biology science books? This case as well as a few others are a shame for the scientific community. If they accuse others form anti-science let them start first within their own community and next come up with proof rather than suggestions of fraud by others.

Hundreds of pages and numerous arguments have been given by the ID movement before arriving at their conclusions rather than jumping to those. Neglecting those arguments is misleading. It is also not true that the ID theory only refers to supernatural causes. It refers to supernatural causes only where materialistic explanations fall completely short.

This is clearly a consequence of the ruling paradigm’s within the scientific community which not only excludes creationists and ID’s to publish their results, but also other scientists who don’t agree with the mainstream scientific theories such as big-bang (as shown above), plate tectonics and biological evolution from a single common ancestor.

Alternative theories provide a challenge to improve on the shortcomings of existing theories or come up with new and better theories on our origins. This proposal is an open call to unjustified censorship as well as a free license to existing theories of origins to maintaining their scientific claims despite all the objections raised both within and outside the scientific establishment.

This is another example of ridiculing creationism and intelligent design. But here’s one in return: What’s the difference between the fairy-tale of the frog that turned into a prince and evolution theory? (answer: 350 million years)

No comments on this section, except that information presented seems to be quite selective and thus one sided.