Posted on 02/08/2005 3:50:43 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Although I do not wish to debate the merits of intelligent design, this forum seems an apt place to correct several factual inaccuracies in the Wall Street Journal’s Op Ed article by David Klinghoffer, “The Branding of a Heretic” (Jan. 28, 2005).Because Dr. von Sternberg has filed an official complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, I cannot comment as fully as I would wish.
1. Dr. von Sternberg is still a Research Associate at the National Museum of Natural History, and continues to have the usual rights and privileges, including space, keys, and 24/7 access. At no time did anyone deny him space, keys or access.
2. He is not an employee of the Smithsonian Institution. His title, “Research Associate,” means that for a three year, potentially renewable period he has permission to visit the Museum for the purpose of studying and working with our collections without the staff oversight visitors usually receive.
3. I am, and continue to be, his only “supervisor,” although we use the term “sponsor” for Research Associates to avoid personnel/employee connotations. He has had no other since Feb. 1, 2004, nor was he ever “assigned to” or under the “oversight of” anyone else.
4. Well prior to the publication of the Meyer article and my awareness of it, I asked him and another Research Associate to move as part of a larger and unavoidable reorganization of space involving 17 people and 20 offices. He agreed.
5. I offered both individuals new, identical, standard Research Associate work spaces. The other accepted, but Dr. von Sternberg declined and instead requested space in an entirely different part of the Museum, which I provided, and which he currently occupies.
6. As for prejudice on the basis of beliefs or opinions, I repeatedly and consistently emphasized to staff (and to Dr. von Sternberg personally), verbally or in writing, that private beliefs and/or controversial editorial decisions were irrelevant in the workplace, that we would continue to provide full Research Associate benefits to Dr. von Sternberg, that he was an established and respected scientist, and that he would at all times be treated as such.
On behalf of all National Museum of Natural History staff, I would like to assert that we hold the freedoms of religion and belief as dearly as any one. The right to heterodox opinion is particularly important to scientists. Why Dr. von Sternberg chose to represent his interactions with me as he did is mystifying. I can’t speak to his interactions with anyone else.
Sincerely yours,
Jonathan Coddington
You're right. It requires faith.
Not directed to me, but here gos...
Anything said in the Bible that contradicts the best scientific reasoning must be considered a miracle, and believed or not believed on faith. There are miracles recorded in the Bible that have left no physical imprint on the earth, and the Flood is one of these. Belief in the Flood as a miracle makes sense as an article of faith, but it is nonsense to assert that it has left a physical record.
IIRC, there's a variety of chromosome counts among horses.
That may be true, but then again it may be because Kepler's laws are derived from (in content, not historically) Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. One of the fundamental postulates of general relativity is that the laws of physics are the same in all reference frames. I would suspect that, using a geocentric reference frame, that it would be entirely possible to use Newton's laws of motion and gravity to derive the orbits of the sun, moon and all the other planets around the earth, and probably some set of laws that describe the motions of these bodies would emerge.
Talk origins has some nice papers on why the Noah story and other literalist crapola are silly. Go here:
www.talkorigins.org/index.html
Here is an excerpt from one of my sermons on the Gospel:
(I don't normally do this online, so you are very blessed)
The Rev. Billy Graham tells of a time early in his career when he arrived in a small town to preach a sermon. Wanting to mail a letter, he asked a young boy where the post office was. When the boy had told him, Dr. Graham thanked him and said, “If you’ll come to the Baptist church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to heaven.”
“ I don’t think I’ll be there.” The boy said, “ You don’t even know your way to the post office.”
[Big SNIP!!!]
Jesus Sent to Us! Jesus Crucified for Us! Jesus Died for us! Jesus Resurrected!-this is the GOOD NEWS!
For God sent his Son, who has always existed, to us to show us His sacrifice on the Cross. This act expunges our sins so that God can look at us as pure and holy, although we can never deserve this consideration. This is called God’s Grace, the unmerited favor.
We cannot earn this, but we are imputed with sinlessness or righteousness because of Jesus dying on the Cross. But this is still not enough to get us into Heaven. This may only be enough to get us to the Post Office. Jesus had to conquer death in His resurrection after 3 days in the tomb and ascend to Heaven. Then he came back and appeared to the apostles and disciples and many others so that they could believe in these events. It is only in the belief that Jesus is God’s Son, that he died, that he resurrected and that the testimony of those that saw Him alive after His death reinforces our belief that we can find Heaven. God gives us the directions to Heaven by his gift to us of these events. Then he leads us to Heaven by the gift of the Holy Spirit- all this is God’s Grace.
Now is there anything you want to know about evolution, or do you still insist on questioning my Christianity?
I was wondering if you could figure it out. It is mystifying to me. I think he is talking about something to do with the great odds of biological evolution taking place at the molecular level or some other argument from personal incredulity.
There is also the fact that there is no evidence for a global flood in the geological record. At every place on earth that has not eroded in the last 10,000 years we should see the same indication of flooding in each cross section (like we do for regional flooding).
What does belief in a non-existent global flood have to do with faith? What reason would there be to put all animals in a boat to save them if it were just a regional flood?
Why couldn't God just take the animals and Noah's family out of time and put them back after the flood? Why would God need Noah to build a boat when God could have saved him the trouble?
There is a difference between believing in miracles and taking as fact utter nonsense extracted from an early pagan myth.
mmm... no.
what it requires are data pertaining to God which are themselves not apocryphal testimony of men talking about God.
After looking for the better part of twenty years, I find it difficult to not conclude that such data do not exist.
would this be an appropriate time to bring up the possible problems of Physics brought up by the Genesis definition of the rainbow and its first appearance?
Any god that would allow his existence to be "proved" would be an idol.
Sure, but I think that too is covered at talk.origins.
really?
damn - I stumbled upon the possible problem on my own hook, too.
drat - there goes my notion of being uniquely clever... again!
bah. I don't buy that.
proof of existence in no way equates to proving you know what a god wants or intends. faith and free will would still have a place.
Does a global flood make the whole Bible less credible? Davis Young, an Evangelical and geologist, wrote [p. 163]:
"The maintenance of modern creationism and Flood geology not only is useless apologetically with unbelieving scientists, it is harmful. Although many who have no scientific training have been swayed by creationist arguments, the unbelieving scientist will reason that a Christianity that believes in such nonsense must be a religion not worthy of his interest. . . . Modern creationism in this sense is apologetically and evangelistically ineffective. It could even be a hindrance to the gospel.
"Another possible danger is that in presenting the gospel to the lost and in defending God's truth we ourselves will seem to be false. It is time for Christian people to recognize that the defense of this modern, young-Earth, Flood-geology creationism is simply not truthful. It is simply not in accord with the facts that God has given. Creationism must be abandoned by Christians before harm is done. . . ."
Another Christian scientist said, "Creationism is an incredible pain in the neck, neither honest nor useful, and the people who advocate it have no idea how much damage they are doing to the credibility of belief." [quoted in Easterbrook, 1997, p. 891]
I guess I was wrong about the rainbow reference. What are your ideas?
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