Posted on 05/17/2004 10:46:51 AM PDT by yonif
CLARKSBURG -- Was the earth really created in six days? What happened to the dinosaurs? Where do fossils come from?
According to Ken Ham, president and founder of Answers in Genesis, the answers are all found in the first book of the Bible, Genesis.
Ham will be speaking at the Answers in Genesis conference May 21-22 at Robert C. Byrd High School.
"It is a blessing for the Christian community to have such a world-renowned speaker come to our area," said Jay Wolfe, chairman for the event. "The best part is that it's free. Typically, it costs $35 per family."
Ham, a native Australian who now resides near Cincinnati, is one of the most in-demand Christian speakers in North America. He is the author of numerous books on Genesis, the accuracy and authority of the Bible, and creationism vs. evolution.
His radio show, "Answers with Ken Ham," is heard on 680 stations worldwide. He is also a contributing author for Creation magazine. A former teacher, Ham is concerned with how education teaches the theory of evolution as fact and how the whole scientific aspect of the Bible is being ignored.
Others from Answers in Genesis participating in the conference are Buddy Davis, Michael Oard and Stacia McKeever.
Davis is a dinosaur sculptor, author/speaker and popular musician. He is also an accomplished paleo-artist, specializing in building life-sized dinosaur sculptures for Answers in Genesis's Creation Museum near Cincinnati.
He will sing selections from his eight CDs.
An expert on Noah's Flood, the Ice Age and Mammoths, Oard recently retired from the National Weather Service as a meteorologist. He'll give illustrated talks on the compelling evidence for Noah's Flood and the Ice Age that resulted, and how the woolly mammoth connects to biblical history.
He is also author of a children's book, "Life in the Great Ice Age," and a book for teens and adults, "The Weather Book."
McKeever is an author and children's speaker. She'll lead workshops for ages 4-6 using a variety of hands-on activities, taking children on a journey through the "7Cs of History."
She graduated summa cum laude in biology and psychology, and has been working full-time for Answers in Genesis (USA) since 1997. She is also a co-author of the Answers for Kids section in Creation magazine, and has written or co-authored a number of articles for that magazine and also for the AiG Web site.
Local church pastors and lay leaders are excited about the conference.
In March, Ham spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at a breakfast/planning meeting held at the Holiday Inn in Bridgeport. At that time, the planning committee and local church leaders set out to raise enough money to bring the conference to Clarksburg at no cost to the community.
"We have raised over $14,000 so we can offer it to the community for free," Wolfe said.
Wolfe added that he felt it was important for everyone to attend the conference.
"There are two world views -- God is or God isn't -- creation or evolution," Wolfe said. "Which one is the predominant world view, espoused by most information media?"
He added that the church must take responsibility for allowing the creation world view to be defeated in our culture. It is time, he said, to "equip ourselves with the sword of the spirit, which is the truth of God's word, and enter the science arena to battle for the hearts and minds of the young people of this generation."
Wolfe said that he realizes that the creation world view is controversial.
"Some will be skeptical," he said. "But the people who are still open-minded even though they now believe in evolution can come out and hear a specialist. They can then analyze for themselves the creation point of view."
Rev. David Hulme of Clarksburg Baptist Church said that hearing Ham speak and reading his books has radically changed the way he looks at some issues facing the church and society.
"I have his book and DVD series, and we've watched it at church," he said. "There seems to be a lot of interest. I think it's because he uses the whole of scripture, not just the creation."
Tressa Shaw of Bridgeport is hoping that everyone attends Answers in Genesis.
"Everyone should come and see that God's word is truth from beginning to end," she said.
Ham will also speak May 23 at Calvary Baptist and Trinity Assembly of God churches. To pre-register for workshops or for more information, call 622-2241.
$99,999,999.99 bid. lol.
The end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" gave me nightmares as a kid.
WHatever you do dont open it. Youll melt away like a wax dummy.
Silly requirements tend to make me stop reading.
Thank you for confirming my suspicion that you don't bother reading an entire post before responding, and that you prematurely jump to conclusions about where the argument is headed.
If you're really interesting in communicating, rather than, say, preaching to the choir or stroking your ego, you should dial down the bluster, IMHO.
And if *you're* really interested in communicating, rather than, say, making excuses for avoiding the subject to protect your fragile preconceptions, you should read whole posts before you blow them off, should stop initiating personal attacks as a substitute for discussion of the points being discussed, and should attempt to actually address the points made by others instead of running off on various irrelevant red herrings. IMHO.
I make some points he does not, he makes some points I do not, and we both make some of the same points.
Are you going somewhere with this, or is this yet another example of your frequent habit of picking a single side issue out of a long post to 'reply' about, hoping that no one will notice that you're dodging any discussion of the many more relevant points that were made?
Blue Oyster Cult?
Have fun beating those straw men.
If Behe will stop setting them up, I can stop knocking them down.
And I note that you *yet again* are pointedly ignoring most of a long, information-filled post, and just tossing off a desultory remark on a trivial side-issue. You're consistent, I'll give you that.
Why don't you come out and admit that you have no intention of actually discussing the substance of Behe's work, or the critiques against it? It'd save us any more wasted time.
[Crickets chirping ... ]
Come to think of it, I guess we have the "President George Bush Freeway" here in north Texas.
Is it because DallasMike pointed out it's shortcomings?
I see you are mistaking "didn't reference it this particular time" for "no longer referencing". It's a good reference, and I encourage readers to check it out if they want a fuller understanding of the topic.
Is it because DallasMike pointed out it's shortcomings?
No, because he didn't "point out its shortcomings". He pointed out his lack of understanding. Most of his gripes were petty language nitpicks, and the rest were based on his failure to understand the article.
For example, when he sarcastically writes, "Of course, pre-existing proteins just happen to be hanging around, waiting for something to do" in response to the author's, " And where would these systems come from? From pre-existing proteins, of course, duplicated and modified", he makes it clear that he doesn't understand what the author is saying (either that, or is engaging in a fallacious straw man attack on it), because the author is talking about proteins that pre-exist and are already being used for some other function within the cell.
And so on for his other so-called points.
If you ever find any *actual* shortcomings in that article, do let me know. Or if you think any of DallasMike's other comments actually hold water, specifically list them out and I'll be glad to show you what's wrong with them.
No, it isn't.
But not necessarily fatal before the organism reaches breeding age -- and nature has a lot of individuals with which to experiment.
So you're suggesting that a species can evolve from A to C by way of an intermediate stage B that has less survivability than A, but leaves it possible with luck to reach stage C before it dies out?
"B" has a survival advantage over "A" (after all, it was a small change in the DNA that got from "A" to "B"). "C" never entered into it.
Your statement that clotting too much or too little is "not necessarily fatal before the organism reaches breeding age" is considerably weaker than "has a survival advantage over" and does not imply it. It is by no means clear that too much clotting has a survival advantage over too little, or vice versa.
it does
Evidence? (Or have I misunderstood the referent of "it"?)
Are you going somewhere with this, or is this yet another example of your frequent habit of picking a single side issue out of a long post to 'reply' about, hoping that no one will notice that you're dodging any discussion of the many more relevant points that were made?
My, what a venomous a**hole. You know what ... have your "victory," and may it bring you much joy.
The clotting cascade started out relatively simple and weak (like the type found in invertebrates). A little stronger would be a survival advantage for the weak cascade. As the cascade gets progressively "stronger" the occasional individual will not have as strong a cascade as the population in general (think hemophiliacs). This is not necessarily fatal.
Of course. The question is whether a slightly modified protease exists that makes it just "a little stronger."
My, what a venomous a**hole.
Yeah, yeah, I'm a mean, vicious brute for being rude enough to not let your continuous evasions slide without pointing them out. I'm so ashamed.
And gosh, you were being such an angel who deserved every courtesy in the world, especially after you began this exchange by accusing me of "intellectual dishonesty" on a trivial pretext right off the bat in lieu of simply addressing the points I raised, eh?
I just have to ask: What sort of bizarre double standard are you operating under by which you consider it acceptable for you to accuse me of being a "chest-thumper", "sneak", "evolumaniac", who is "stroking my ego", "making silly requirements", "preaching to the choir", "misrepresenting the status of the debate", lacking in "intellectual honesty", and "beating straw men", and yet somehow my pointing out that you have a habit of changing the subject makes me a "venomous a**hole"?
Astounding.
You know what ... have your "victory," and may it bring you much joy.
This isn't about "winning", it's about discussing a topic that you yourself raised (e.g. Behe's work). I keep trying to discuss the merits of his work, and you keep trying to talk only about side issues. Why is that?
And it brings me no joy when I try to discuss a topic on its merits and you keep namecalling, nitpicking, going off on tangents, handwaving about rebuttals that don't actually address the point I was making, making unsupported accusations -- in short, doing everything you can to talk about anything *but* the core subject at hand head-on.
If you have no adequate rebuttal to the flaws that have been pointed out in Behe's work, just say so. Or if you actually do want to discuss that topic, then *discuss* it, don't keep shifting the main topic every time I make a post addressing Behe's work in detail.
But for pete's sake, don't try to pretend that it's somehow *my* fault that the issue of your dancing away from the real topic every time I try to discuss it has become the elephant in the living room.
If you find it "venomous" that I point out when you're sidestepping my main points about the topic each time (horrors!), there's a quick, easy solution -- stop sidestepping. Or at least get better at it so that it's not so terribly obvious.
Speaking of which, this current "you're an a**hole" reply of yours looks suspiciously like yet another excuse for not actually discussing the topic I keep trying to get you to discuss (again, one that *you* first raised). Huffing about how "rude" someone is then using that to avoid answering their questions doesn't work for John Kerry, and it's not likely to be any more successfully around here.
Now that you've finished your outburst, let's try to get this discussion back on track yet *again*. Here is a list of points I've raised concerning Behe's position which you have dodged in this thread (oops, I crave your pardon, gentle sir, "which you have accidentally overlooked because you are a paragon of intellectual honesty who would not possibly engage in such tactics purposely"):
1. Behe's definition of "Irreducible Complexity" fails to take into account the fact that evolution can build systems by other methods than *only* successive addition of components.
2. Behe's definition of "Irreducible Complexity" fails to take into account the fact that evolution can co-opt systems or components which previously were performing some other function(s).
3. Behe has no excuse for overlooking these fundamental oversights in his analysis of evolution, since Darwin himself made a point of reminding biologists of these points way back in 1859, in the most famous biology book in the world, the one most fundamental to the field of evolution.
4. Behe's own examples of "IC" biological systems are demonstrably not "IC", since variants exist in nature which still function properly with fewer components than Behe's allegedly "IC" versions. By Behe's *own* definition, this proves that his examples are not IC after all.
5. Behe can't even get the easy stuff right -- his hand-picked elementary example of an "IC" device, a mousetrap, is not actually "IC" even by Behe's definition. The fact that this example was introduced for purposes of illustration doesn't change the fact that Behe managed to mess up even a purposely simple example.
6. Behe should have realized that something was wrong with his definition because when applied it "proves" all sorts of natural products "impossible" to arise by gradual natural processes, such as stone arches.
7. Behe's arguments as to why his "IC examples" must be "IC" manage to fail to take into account what was already known and published about those systems years before Behe wrote his book.
8. Behe's presentation of the alleged "IC" intracellular protein transport system amazingly torpedoes *itself* by openly contradicting Behe's own definition of "IC".
9. Behe specifically sidestepped several of these points when attempting a response to a review which had made them.
10. Worse, Behe engaged in a hypocritical diversionary tactic when he should have been addressing the questions that have been raised about his work.
11. Behe dishonestly (or cluelessly, I don't care which) tried to shift the burden of proof to his critics, instead of accepting that he has to adequately support his *own* premises before his "conclusion" can be considered more than just a hypothesis.
12. Behe snottily insists that his critic(s) get their counterarguments peer-reviewed before he'll consider them, while Behe has been refusing to do the same himself for his own work. What a hypocrite.
13. Behe was either grossly dishonest or astoundingly ignorant when he arrogantly claimed that no one in 1996 had yet published peer-reviewed work on the evolution of the blood-clotting cascades.
I would appreciate specific responses to each of these points, since none have been forthcoming as yet despite numerous attempts on my part to focus your attention on them (and no, links to random responses by Behe which don't actually tackle those points still won't count). Ideally they will be in your own words, or at the very least *excerpted* portions of articles by Behe which deal specifically with those points (and not just mention them long enough to fire off an evasion, as was the case with the previous link from Behe).
Or, an admission that they are valid criticisms of Behe's work and/or intellectual integrity would also be fine.
PS: Since you've already played the "you're an a**hole" card, any further variations on the "I don't have to defend my position because you're being mean to me" ploy will incur a ten yard penalty to your credibility.
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