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Shattering Delusions: Winkey Pratney
Part 3: The Fossil Record
by Winkie Pratney
Strange as it may seem, Darwin himself said that the fossil record is "one of the most obvious and serious objections which could be urged against the theory," and "the absence of transitional forms between species presses hardly upon my theory."
Darwin didn't have access to the Fossil Record when he first proposed his theory. He based it only on living animals. Of course there wouldn't be transitional forms. Now, we have the Fossil Record, which shows those transitional forms. Of course, Winkie won't let that little detail derail his oft-hijacked train of thought.
He realized what many people today do not realize: the record of the rocks is more a testimony of EXTINCTION than to evolution. We see CHANGE all right between fossil and modern forms, only of the "variation within kind" accepted by Creationists. Fossil forms on the whole are MORE COMPLEX and VARIED than their counterparts today, except from those creatures like the Coelacanth, the Tuatara, cockroaches, ants, and dragonflies. Like other "living fossils," they have not changed significantly at all-a real problem in a theory that assumes life-forms tend to change! (James Millot, Scientific American, Dec. 1955, p. 37; Charles M. Bogert, Scientific Monthly, 1953, p. 167; "Insects In Amber," Scientific American, Nov. 1951, pp. 57-58, 60-61; "The Dragon-Fly-Fossil On Wings," Science Digest, May 1961, p. 6).
Perhaps, then, he'd mind explaining why we have found skeletons such as Lucy, homo-erectus, Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, if a species "have not changed significantly at all."
As to his other comments regarding fossils being more complex, they're wrong. There is a trend called "progressionism" that goes on with fossils as you dig deeper and deeper. Fossils tend to be less complex the deeper you go. This is recognized by all biologists and geologists. Just because certain, complex fossils are extinct doesn't disprove Evolutionary Theory and prove Creationism.
Darwin hoped that further research by the science of paleontology (then still in its infant stages) would SUPPORT his theory; he thought he just didn't have enough data. "He who rejects this view of the imperfection of the geological record will rightly reject the whole theory. For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional (missing) links which must formerly have connected the closely allied or representative species" (Darwin, op. cit. 179).
This is true. Darwin didn't have all the data that we do today. He didn't have the Fossil Record, which has helped immensely in establishing Evolutionary Theory's validity.
"MISSING LINKS" STILL MISSING
Few scientists are still looking for "missing links"; it looks as if they will STAY missing. The most famous, "Archaeopteryx," once considered the link between reptiles and birds, is now generally acknowledged as one of the first birds; the discovery of another bird femur in the same strata has ruled her out as being the ancestor of birds, because they ALREADY EXISTED in her time (Gary Parker: Creation-The Facts of Life, pp. 101-102).
Creationists like to pretend that the entire fossil record has been fully documented and that there are no transitional forms between species. Only Europe and America have really made an effort at documenting their respective fossil records, with other continents starting to document theirs.
Also, just because he doesn't know about a transitional form between species doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Biologists see no need to widely publicize every transitional form they find! They don't need to spread out more evidence for Evolution because it already has enough to be classified as a scientific theory! And, why should they? Do nuclear reactor operators bother to widely publicize every instance of successful nuclear fission in their reactor, just so that they can add more evidence to Einstein's Theory of Relativity? No, of course not, they don't need to. Then why should biologists try to keep adding evidence to support a scientific theory? To appease Creationists like this guy? I wonder if he's even tried looking for transitional fossil records outside the scope of his TV.
"The fossil record," says Douglas Dewar, a British naturalist and once an ardent evolutionist, "cannot be regarded as other than a HOSTILE witness against evolution; the earliest known fossils of each class and order are not half-developed but have all the essential characteristics or their class and order" (Why We Believe In Creation, p. 312).
I don't see any concrete examples of this claim, do you? Look in a modern biology textbook (that hasn't been issued in the Southern United States) and see what it says about progressionism. I'd trust a text written for the sole purpose of education over one written to be one-sided in a debate.
"As we look at the main groups of fossil flora, we find there that at definite intervals they are all at once and quite suddenly there, in full bloom in all their manifold forms. Any change is entirely lacking. This all stands as crass a contradiction to the evolution theory as could possibly be imagined all my investigations have led to incredible contradictions on account of which the theory of evolution ought to be entirely abandoned, it is a serious obstruction to biological research. My attempts to demonstrate evolution by experiments carried out for over 40 years have completely failed" (Dr. Herbert Nilsson, Professor of Botany, Univ. of Lund, Sweden, after a LIFETIME STUDY of genetics and the fossil record).
This runs contrary to what every biologist sees as he or she digs deeper into the Earth and observes the trend of fossils. Furthermore, he fails to provide a year for this quote. This is not a trivial omission. A date attached to this quote would help us establish the fossil record's state at that time. What if he said that in the year 1910, when research facilities weren't nearly as advanced as they are today? How valid would you consider it?
"HOPEFUL MONSTERS?"
More recently some, like Stephen Gould of Harvard, have returned to the "hopeful monster" theory ("saltatory" [jumping] evolution, or the "punctuated equilibrium" of Richard Goldschmidt in the 1930s; the idea that radical change in genes or chromosomes made a lizard, for instance, give birth to a bird-a "hopeful" idea indeed. Gould himself points out problems with this. (How VERY lucky can you get? And if you think people have problems finding a mate, how about our hopeful monster?) (Stephen Gould: "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," Natural History, June-July 1977).
This bears no significance on the fact that Evolution has been observed in nature. If I started claiming that, according to Evolution, if I had sex enough, I'd eventually grow another penis, would that automatically invalidate Evolutionary Theory? One person's flawed claims about a theory do not discount that theory. More basic logic which seems to escape the fragile, childlike grasp on Mr. Pratney.
ILLOGICAL GEOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS
There are some big (and I do mean BIG) problems getting the facts to fit in Sir Charles Lyell's geology. The neat "geological ages" chart you see on school walls is a MYTH-it never exists like that anywhere on earth or it would be a hundred miles high. Then there are the many examples of totally REVERSED "strata layers" that no known force could have produced that way-some are THOUSANDS of square miles (the Lewis overthrust for instance, weighs in at around 800,000 BILLION TONS, but shows no signs of grinding or sliding that a true "overthrust" would produce) (William G. Pierce: Bulletin of American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Vol. 141, 1958, p. 596; John G. Read: "Experiences In Overthrust Areas," Bible-Science Association, op. cit. pp. 1-6).
Wow! Did anyone else catch that? He's claiming that a chart that qualified scientists recommended be displayed in classrooms across the United States...is totally and utterly wrong! That's a pretty big claim to make, especially for someone who hasn't established any scientific credentials for himself in the area of geology, or any other scientific field, for that matter. Maybe, the Periodic Table is a myth, too.
He doesn't bother stating any other of the "many" examples where there are reversed strata layers. As far as I know, the Lewis Overthrust is one of four such layers, and I found that information on a Creationist website, located here. Aside from that, there exist plenty of normally-ordered strata layers in the world. He's basically picking out this one example and running against hundreds of other examples which contradict it. Did any Creationists ever consider that these layers might be located in areas with abnormal plate tectonic activity? Throwing out all other contradictory examples is yet another flaw in Creationist "logic." Why don't I just say that we should disregard the entire Bible because some parts of it are wrong (and they are, Great Flood, anyone?). In any case, an explanation for the overthrust can be found here.
Other embarrassing discoveries of modern times include: human skulls, gold chains, and an iron pot in coal; human skulls in the Pliocene strata; pollen and anthropods in Pre-Cambrian layers; even pictographs of a dinosaur among other animals on ancient canyon walls, which would knock some 70 million years out of the geologic column! (Otto Stutzer: "Geology of Coal", Chicago, Univ. of Chicago, 1940, p. 271; R.L. Wysong, op. cit. pp. 370-383; E. Scoyen: Arizona Highways, 27, July 1951, pp. 36-39). Only two explanations are possible: (1) Modern man lived in the earliest years of evolutionary history; (2) History must be shrunk to the time of man. Neither of these is acceptable to a geology based on uniformist principles. Albert C. Ingalls said, "If man existed as far back as the Carboniferous period in any shape, then the whole science of geology is completely wrong" ("The Carboniferous Mystery," Scientific Monthly, Vol. 162, January 1940, p. 14).
This is preposterous. Obviously, our friend here doesn't believe that erosion occurs. Furthermore, no human transitory fossils or skeletons (or human fossils for that matter) have been found that date back to the Pliocene age. He never mentions the carbon-dating data for the human skulls, gold chains, or iron pot in coal. Scientists don't judge something's age by where they found it because erosion moves things around within sedimentary and strata layers. Rather, they use isometric dating techniques to determine the age of something and, thus, what period it belonged to.
Oh, but I guess those aren't reliable, either, since his next little blurb discusses, briefly, the flaws in dating techniques that scientists never could have thought of.
HOW ABOUT DATING METHODS?
A brief word on radioactive and other dating methods. We do not have space to go into the problems of some of the different methods used to establish the "long ages" of Earth's fossil records in a short treatment like this; suffice to say that although these systems have value in confirming the age of more recent creatures or artifacts, much is based on ASSUMPTIONS that no radical changes have taken place in Earth's atmosphere or radiation decay rates (W.F. Libby, Radiocarbon Dating, Chicago, Univ. of Chicago, 1952; F.B. Juneman, Industrial Research, 14, 1972, p. 15; Anderson & Spangler: "Radiometric Dating: Is the 'Decay Constant' Constant?" Pensee, 4, Fall 1974, p. 34).
We don't have the space to go into all the "errors" in scientific dating techniques, but we do have the space for superfluous quotes, pseudo-science, misinterpretations of scientific law, and preaching?
Why is the assumption that decay rates don't change a flawed one? They don't! If radioactive decay rates were in a constant state of flux, then half-lives for materials such as uranium would be indeterminable. Strangely, my physics textbook lists these values which can't be determined, according to Mr. Pratney. Also, he's getting his information from textbooks that are at least twenty-seven years old Radiometric dating has changed since 1952, 1972 and 1974.
Well, let's just make sure. I just happen to have good old Fundamentals of Physics right here, complete with a chapter on nuclear physics. Check out this statement:
"There is absolutely no way to predict whether any given nucleus in the sample will be among the small number of nuclei that decay during the next second. All have equal chance."
Source: Fundamentals of Physics, Fifth Edition, Halliday, Resnick and Walker, pg. 1080.
We can be lenient to Mr. Pratney and assume that he was misinterpreting this statement to say that "you can't predict the rate at which something will decay," and that he's not a complete scientific ignoramus. The only thing unpredictable about decay rates is which nuclei will decay. Probability indicates that a certain number of nuclei will decay in a given second. Furthermore, the implications of varying decay rates are enormous. Let's think, what exactly is radioactive decay? Well, it's what happens when an atom spontaneously emits a particle and transforms into another type of atom. For example, Uranium 238 emits a helium nucleus and becomes thorium. What drives the decay rate? Well, around the uranium nucleus, there is a potential energy barrier. This is the limit of energy that can exist within the atom. This barrier can't be broken. You may ask, how can this barrier be insurmountable if an alpha particle can escape through it. Well there is always a finite probability that an alpha particle will "tunnel" through the barrier that, according to classical physics, can't be broken, and escape. The particle converts some of its gravitational binding energy to kinetic energy, which gives it enough velocity to tunnel through. This is known as barrier tunneling. It is this finite probability that determines the radioactive decay rates of radionuclides. A high decay rate implies a "leaky" barrier, in which the probability of alpha particle escape is higher.
So, where am I going with this? Well, if decay rates are variable, as Mr. Pratney believes them to be, that would mean that the potential energy barrier around each atom is in a constant state of flux. At one time, the atom would be at a higher energy state, and at another, a lower energy state. This would mean that boiling points, melting points, specific heat capacities, and virtually every other property of an element or compound is subject to change at any given moment. Think if the decay rates were variable in the sun! The fusion process would slow down, eventually not being able to produce enough energy to sustain the star, transforming it into a cold ball of gas. This would not bode well for humanity, but Mr. Pratney doesn't worry about such things, because, according to him, the Laws of Physics shut off when intelligent beings intervene. He will simply go around making claims comparable to saying "Well, the boiling point of water 10,000 years ago was 4,000 degrees Kelvin!"
TWENTY-THREE CENTURY SNAILS
This may lead, for instance, to numerous ridiculous findings, like LIVING snails being dated (C-14 method) at 2,300 years old, NEW wood from growing trees at 10,000 years, and Hawaiian lava flows KNOWN to be less than two centuries old at up to 3 BILLION years old! (Keith & Anderson: "Radiocarbon Dating: Fictitious Results with Mollusk Shells," Science, 141, 1963, p. 634; Funkhauser & Naughton: Journal of Geophysical Research, 73, 1968, p. 4606; Laghlin: "Excess Radiogenic Argon on Pegmatite Minerals", op. cit. 74, 1969, p. 6684; R.L. Wysong: "Youth or Antiquity?" op. cit. pp. 145-179). Wysong and others give a large list of factors that point to a young Earth, like Gentry's "pleochroic halos," oil gusher pressure, decay of Earth's magnetic movement and its slowing spin rate, the shallow dust layer of the moon, and much more (op. cit. pp. 158-178).
For nearly a century and a quarter, people have attempted to improve this "imperfection of the geologic record." Darwin would have been sick if he had seen what has been collected. The Curator of the Field Museum For Natural History in Chicago (housing 20% of all known fossil species) says, "Ironically we have even FEWER examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information" (David Raup: "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum Bulletin, January 1979). "Famous paleontologists at Harvard, the American and even the British Museum say we have NOT A SINGLE EXAMPLE of evolutionary transition at all" (Parker, op. cit. 95).
Snails tend to absorb what they slide across. Thus, the snail in question probably picked up some 2,300 year-old wood, and then picked up small fragments of it. This happens, simply put, because snails are slimy and sticky. Other such occurrences of carbon-dating being wrong are easily-explained. If these methods were in such grievous error, scientists would have abandoned them long ago. Science is the search for truth in what happens in nature. Science really doesn't care about the outcome, as long as it's the truth. This is the antithesis of Creationist philosophies. Also, if these methods are so terribly flawed, why don't the Creationists TELL THE FUCKING SCIENTISTS!? They see a flaw, so what do they do? Just sit there and point at it! They don't even attempt to rectify it! I have a little guess as to why: They know that scientists will laugh in their faces if they bring this stuff up. While I'm not really qualified to discuss radiometric dating techniques, neither is he. I'm sure if he was talking to a geologist or person with intimate knowledge of radiometric dating, he'd be hard-pressed to find any sort of flawed example without explanation.
When he mentions "pleochroic halos," I assume he means polonium halos, discovered by Dr. Gentry. This page contains a detailed explanation and refutation of those findings. Also, the Earth's magnetic movement is not decaying. This is a common Creationist fallacy. The Earth's magnetic field reverses polarity, but it does not decay. As for the "dust layer" problem, this page contains a nice and clean refutation of that argument. It turns out that Creationists used
AM I MY KEEPER'S BROTHER?
How about fossil men classified as pre-humanoid? How about all the pictures of beetle-browed, club-lugging Neanderthal muggers? How about them, indeed! Although some textbooks and magazines don't seem to have caught up with recent research, it seems as if "ape-men" are largely figments of the artistic "reconstructor's" IMAGINATION. The vast majority of fossil finds (which include thousands of apes and a great many skeletons of MODERN man) have been shown to be either fictitious or mistaken classification. We shall not mention in detail embarrassing cases from the past like the elephant's knee-cap assigned to "Pithecanthropus" in 1926, or the "Hesperopithecus" tooth of 1922 introduced as evidence in the famous Scopes trial, but which turned out to be that of a pig! Others like the DuBois "Java Man" and "PekingMan" (whose remains "mysteriously disappeared") have been quietly removed from the textbooks, along with "Piltdown Man," the clever but shameful hoax of Charles Dawson that fooled specialists and men of science for nearly 40 years.
More recently, "Australopithecus" ("southern ape") was news; that is now quite probably all Donald Johansen's "Lucy" is (Time, January 29, 1979). Louis Leaky found tools at the site, and assumed Australopithecus made them; his son found "bones virtually indistinguishable from modern man" (the toolmaker?) underneath them 13 years later, and said then his discovery "shattered standard beliefs in evolution" (Parker, op. cit. 117-118). Many fossilized skeletons of MODERN man have been unearthed at locations as OLD or OLDER than the supposedly less advanced humanoids found (Men of Galley Hill, Swanscombe, Foxhall, Grimaldi, Oldoway, Wadjack, and others). The "Cro-Magnon" man of Europe have superior size and brain capacity than modern man; a number of men of great age, but truly human, of gigantic size have been unearthed in the Far East, especially in Java. All these findings add to the principle that developmental evolution is not the universal law of biology, but rather DETERIORATION or degeneration.
Again, a few findings of this nature cannot authoritatively refute every other finding which says that lend support to Evolutionary Theory, such as progressionism, the trend for fossils to get simpler and simpler the deeper one digs into the Earth. Progressionism is accepted in the biological community because there are so many examples of it. Many of the deviant findings and hoaxes he listed were from the early 20th Century. How well-developed were methods of radiometric dating back then? How well-developed were methods to test a skeleton's authenticity? Not very. The "embarrassments," like Piltdown Man, he mentioned would have never made it past today's biological scrutiny due to the new and improved methods of dating and testing. He cites a laughable five examples of scientific mistakes due to lack sufficiently-advanced certification technology, and then expects everyone to accept those in place of progressionism and the research of all those biologists (you know, the ones with the "Dr." prefix?).
Plus, he mentions Lucy, but doesn't go into specifics about what he finds flawed in Lucy. He doesn't mention that Lucy is a transitional skeleton, unearthed in 1977 in Ethiopia. Despite the fact that Winkie Pratney doesn't seem to like it,Ê we have Neanderthal skeletons. We have Cro-Magnon skeletons. There is also the more recently uncovered Kenyanthropus platyops, taken from Kenya in 1999. Are these "fictitious" as well?
THE WORLD THAT THEN WAS PERISHED
How did the fossils form? James Hutton introduced to geology "uniformitarianism," an idea popularized by Sir Charles Lyell and deeply influencing Darwin's work-that "the present is the key to the past." Sometimes it is indeed. Erosion, sedimentation, and the occasional island formation or flood, give us pictures of what has happened in some places. Of course, this all takes TIME and lots of it. And fossils do not form like that. Creatures that die today quickly vanish from decay or scavengers. Fossils are the children of CATASTROPHE-a living thing is buried suddenly by eruption, flood, or landslide. The world is filled with these "graveyards" of more than 100,000 different species; some fossil beds have not less than 10 BILLION individual fossils! COAL is a classic example. Trillions of tons of vegetation, some of it perfectly preserved even to flowers and leaves, are buried, with some seams as much as 30-40 feet thick. Forget your grade school image of trees falling into a swamp and "millions of years later" becoming coal. Under the right conditions, coal can be formed in a few DECADES, and plants falling into water only rot unless SUDDENLY compressed and cut off from oxidation by a large lump of soil or clay. No known peat bog in the world grades into coal, and some coal seams have 75 or more stratas each representing up to 300-400 feet of original vegetable matter! And what about large tree trunks that go right through SEVERAL sedimentary strata?
Wow. Sounds pretty bad for the Evolutionists' case, doesn't it? Well, until we, being good debaters, demand that he show sources for his claims, which he hasn't. Any specifics on these fossil beds with "no less than 10 billion individual fossils?" Where are they located? He's been pretty good about referencing his claims, thus far, why not make some references, now? Maybe, because this is something he "heard" from one of his Creationist buddies while they were in a prayer meeting or shaking hands during the sign of peace at Sunday mass?
Also, is he seriously suggesting that fossils don't take lots of time to form? Fossils are formed when an animal dies and is buried by a landslide or fall into water and are covered by sediments. These sediments act as a protective layer, keeping the animal from completely rotting. Over a very long time (i.e.: thousands of years), the sediments harden into rock, and the animal's remains decay inside that rock, leaving a shaped imprint that looks exactly like the animal (the skeleton, in most cases, because the animal's bones are the most likely to not rot, while skin and organs are much more likely to do so, even when surrounded by protective sediment). Minerals will then get into the rock and fill in the space left by the animal's skeleton. This is where a fossil comes from. Whether or not Winkie Pratney likes it, it takes a long time. Don't believe me?
Is he honestly saying that the process by which coal is formed that is taught to geology students is wrong? He says that "under the right conditions" coal can be formed in a few decades. Does he even bother stating what these conditions would be? Is he the only one that knows? If so, he's withholding this valuable information from scientists who are desperately searching for alternative energy sources, because our supply of coal will dry up expressly because of the enormous amount of time it takes coal to form! Check out the Department of Energy's page, which explains how coal is formed. You won't see anything about coal being formed in such a ridiculously short time. He made this statement for one, simple reason: it can't be checked. If brought to his attention that geology textbooks contained nothing about a process which forms coal in such a short time, he could simply say, "Well, just because there's nothing about it in there doesn't mean that the process doesn't exist."
A WARNING IN THE ROCKS
It looks very much indeed as if the fossil record is one of great CATASTROPHE, an order of DEATH, not an order of ascending life. One creation model much researched today is that of Flood Geology, which postulates that much of the fossil record is an order of DEPOSITION, as a terrible judgment swept the world the first time (Whitcombe & Morris: The Genesis Flood; George Howe, ed: Speak to the Earth, Pres. & Reformed Publishing Co.; Duane Gish: Evolution-The Fossils Say No! Creation Life Publishers).
All life was buried by walls of water, and so-called "ages" are actually ecological ZONES that were buried and choked in mud. In the Noarchian Flood, waters swirled over the planet face for 371 days, with tides 5,000 to 10,000 feet high creating tremendous pressure on all buried matter, providing the power to fossilize forests and petrify wood in a matter of months. Recently there have been popularized searches for the location of the last resting place of the Ark (NOAH'S Ark, not the one Indiana Jones was after!). It was a massive vehicle of some 43,300 tons displacement, around 450 X 75 X 45 feet in size, with a total deck area of 101,250 square feet and a carrying capacity equal to 8 freight trains of 65 cars each! (1,396,000 cubic feet.) Ernest Mayr, leading systematic taxonomist, lists around 1,000,000 different species of modern animal life, of which (even according to modern "kinds") only some 35,000 were land-based. With around 240 large animals to a standard 2-deck rail car, 2 trains hauling 73 such cars could carry the full load; the Ark had space for 522 cars this size, so there was plenty of room (even for the elephants' bathrooms!). It should be obvious that without supernatural CARE, Noah's little family would never have survived; without supernatural INTERVENTION, our world would STILL be buried in water. (See Isaiah 55:9-10.) Scripture indicates a possible mammoth restructuring of Earth's topology (Psalm 104:6-9-"The mountains ascend, the valleys descend"), creating our present deep ocean basins to drain off the floodwaters, and our ancestors finally stepped off into a new world (Genesis 6:20, 7:15-16, 8:1).
Sorry, Winkie. Noah's Ark is a myth. Perhaps, you'd mind explaining how Noah got penguins and polar bears to survive outside of their extremely cold natural habitats for almost a year? How about dinosaurs? According to Creationists, dinosaurs co-existed with man. Did Noah take any of them along, too? How did Noah fit a year's worth of food on the Ark for all the animals which require specialized diets? How did Noah handle the situation if one of the gorillas got pissed at a giraffe, or any behavioral dispute? Where did Noah store all the animal dung and feces? Did the animals take turns with various "toilets" placed throughout the Ark?
It's bad enough that Creationists buy into God creating everything out of nothing in a week of indeterminate length, but they actually think that a man could build a ship with enough space to support two of every animal on the face of the planet, even though that ship may not satisfy certain animals' habitat requirements, a ship that could also effectively dispose of the massive amounts of feces produced by these animals, a ship that could store a year's supply of food for each animal on board, even the ones that required specialized diets. How did Noah feed every single creature on board? The food would have to be kept in containers to keep pests and other animals out. Some animals require raw meat as a part of their diet. How did Noah keep this meat from going bad? How did he...
I hope everyone gets the point, here. If Pratney wants people to take him seriously, he's going to have to stop using God as a cop-out for everything that he can't explain. For a full list on the absurdities demanded by the flood myth, visit this page.
HOW LONG CAN WE TREAD WATER?
"For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah," said Jesus, "For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." (Matt. 24:37-39). The first time He came as a baby; the next time He comes as the rightful King of the Earth. The Apostle Peter said: "Know this first of all, that in the last days scoffers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming?' For this they willingly are ignorant of the world that then was being overflowed with water perished; but the present heavens and earth by His Word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." (2 Peter 3:3-7).
Water then, FIRE next time. It is the considered conviction of thousands of respected researchers and scientists that, based on the evidence, it is time to return to the Lord. They say this not because they are blind, prejudiced, or stupid, but because the FACTS do not fit the alternative. If both the Creationist and the Evolutionist pictures are, in the final analysis, matters of FAITH, it is better to stick with the faith that best coincides with the facts. It is a big gamble indeed to risk your soul and your future on the hope that you are nothing more than the blind product of time, chance, and matter, when you may have to stand before the Creator you rejected-DESPITE THE FACTS-and explain to Him your logic. It is also our conviction that you will not have to wait very long. Time's final drama is about to take place, and as C.S. Lewis put it-"When the Author walks on stage, the play is over." It is time to seek the Lord. The next move is over to you.
More inconsequential religious yammering. I'd be happy to explain my logic to God. He'd agree with me, if he's as all-knowing as Christians say he is.
Notice he's still on his false premise that Evolutionary Theory is a matter of faith. It isn't. It's a matter of observed fact.
You'll notice that he hasn't cited any evidence in this essay which directly lends support to Creationism. There is a good reason for this: there isn't any, at all. He's picked out little occurrences and observations that can be twisted to make it seem as if he was right, while suggesting that these occurrences should invalidate the fields of astrophysics, geology, biology and astronomy, even though they can be easily rationalized with the existing knowledge of how the Earth works.
I'd be interested in knowing if he's given this essay to a qualified biologist, geologist or physicist. I wonder if he's actually given this to the very people he's trying to prove wrong.
Now, I invite you to peruse through his bibliography. You'll notice that it doesn't contain one college-level (or even high-school level) textbook. It is simply a list of books only directly relating to the debate subject. This may seem acceptable, at first, but books that pertain to this debate are never written in an impartial fashion. They will undoubtedly be biased. In his case, I'd venture to guess that most of these books were written by Creationists. You'll notice that, for defining scientific principles, I used a college-level physics textbook. The only times I used websites partial to Evolutionary Theory in this debate was when I was directly responding to an argument, and referenced the argument from that site. I did not use an Evolutionist site or text to say how fossils were formed or what the Law of Entropy states. I used an unbiased source when I sought a simple definition, unlike Mr. Pratney.
Conclusion
If you were struggling with the question of which is right, Creationism or Evolution, I hope that, after reading this document, you are not. It should be pretty clear which viewpoint has the evidence behind it. Every time Creationism wins a victory in schools as a "legitimate theory," I believe that America inches closer and closer to becoming the Christendom that Creationists and Christian bigots would have it be.
Schools in the southern and rural United States have actually allowed teachers to teach "alternatives to Evolution" (a.k.a.: Creationism) because students "should be exposed to theories other than Evolution." Don't believe me? Don't think that anyone certified to teach science in the United States could possibly be this ignorant of the scientific method? Check this site out. It is genuinely frightening that people who call themselves adults actually believe that a fairy tale myth should be taught in the same class as an established scientific theory! If Creationism possessed the status of scientific theory, I'd agree, but it is a far cry from being even a scientific hypothesis, or even scientific at all. Creationism has no base in science in the slightest, and, thus, has no place in the science classrooms of our country. In fact, it's entirely based in religion, and teaching it in public schools is a direct violation of the First Amendment's clause on freedom of religion and the state not giving preference to one religion over another. If Creationism is to be taught in classrooms, then so must every other religious myth that describes creation. You can see how absurd this would be. This is the kind of insanity that happens when religion pushes its head into matters of science.
I'm generally a pretty open-minded person, willing to listen to other ideas, so you won't hear me say something like this often: Any reason a Creationist gives for the invalidity for Evolutionary Theory will undoubtedly be either an outright lie, a distortion of the truth, or a mutilation of science. Do not take Creationists' statements regarding this debate at face value. Force them to back up their statements, as you'll find very little real weight behind them. Demand that they actually define Evolutionary Theory. Chances are, they'll mix it in with Abiogenesis or simply get the entire definition wrong. If you put enough pressure on them, they will crack and resort to religious bigotry attacks like, "Satan has blinded you!" or "I will pray for you!" Then, you'll see the true motivator behind Creationism: Religious bigotry.
