Scientific American threatens AiG : Demands immediate removal of Web rebuttal

The prominent magazine Scientific American thought it had finally discredited its nemesis—creationism—with a feature article listing ‘15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense’ (July 2002). Supposedly these were the fifteen best arguments that evolutionists could use to discredit the Bible’s account of Creation. (National Geographic TV also devoted a lengthy report to the article.)

Within 72 hours, Dr Jonathan Sarfati—a resident scientist at Answers in Genesis–Australia—had written a comprehensive, point-by-point critique of the magazine article and posted it on this Web site.

So Scientific American thought it would try to silence AiG with the threat of a lawsuit.

In an e-mail to Dr Sarfati, Scientific American accused him and AiG of infringing their copyright by reproducing the text of their article and an illustration. They said they were prepared to ‘settle the matter amicably’ provided that AiG immediately remove Dr Sarfati’s article from its Web site.

AiG’s international copyright attorney, however, informed Scientific American that their accusations are groundless and that AiG would not be removing the article. Dr Sarfati’s article had used an illustration of a bacterial flagellum, but it was drawn by an AiG artist years ago. AiG had also used the text of SA’s article, but in a way that is permissible under ‘fair use’ of copyrighted materials for public commentary. (AiG presented the text of the SA article, with Dr Sarfati’s comments interspersed in a different color, to avoid any accusations of misquoting or misrepresenting the author.)

Why the heavy-handed tactics? If AiG’s responses were not valid, why would Scientific American even care whether they remained in the public arena? One can only presume that Scientific American (and National Geographic) had the ‘wind taken out of their sails.’ Dr Sarfati convincingly showed that they offered nothing new to the debate and they displayed a glaring ignorance of creationist arguments. Their legal maneuver appears to be an act of desperation. (AiG is still awaiting SA’s response to the decision not to pull the Web rebuttal.)

Good News For The Day

‘But I say to all of you: In the future, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty One.’ (Matthew 26:64)

"If the universe is moral, (and the fact that such a person as Christ existed, is strong evidence that it is), then what Jesus said about himself and the future, must come true. If morality has an infinite source, and backing, then the moral excellence of Christ will ultimately... triumph---over evil."

"I know some very agreeable people. I know some that I would call gentle giants. But their easygoing spirit is never a threat to greed and corruption. Kindness, patience, understanding, and love are not better than envy and bitterness, if they only ever exist as counterweights to their opposites. A good man who is content to coexist forever with badness, and wrong, cannot be a good man in any absolute sense."

"The goodness of Jesus is surpassing because he not only sorrowed over sin, and was outraged by it, he set himself against it, and warned his enemies that by suffering for it, he would rise above it, and eliminate it."

"If our universe is a moral one, then Jesus' values can never be viewed in any offhand way. Rather, he must be seen as a hazard to every act, motive, system, institution, or law, that is not in sympathy with him. A question that governments and their constituents ought to ask is: Are we making laws; invoking policies that clash with Christ and the direction of his Spirit? If so we are building badly. The universe itself will not back us. The future belongs to Christ-and to all who follow him."

Good News For The Day

‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.’ (Luke 20:17)

"The most familiar, and the best-loved images of Jesus, are those that picture to us, his gentle, compassionate spirit. "Whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out"; "Come to me, all you who are weary"; "Let the little children come to me."

"But there are other images of Jesus in the Gospels, which show another aspect of his personality. They emphasize the steel in him. Sometimes Jesus was awesome; formidable."

"In the parable, Jesus presents himself as the landlord's Son; the rejected stone, that eventually becomes the most important stone in the superstructure of the kingdom of God. Jesus plainly thought that those who opposed him were in collision with God. He was warning nation's leaders: "It is unwise and unsafe to be against me." Tough talk from Jesus! He was signaling what was taken up by Peter at Pentecost, where, full of resurrection joy and authority, he preached saying: "This Jesus, you put him to death. . . . but God raised him from the dead. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:31-36).

"In the parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus teaches that those who discard him, will not thereby have gotten rid of him. Jesus was not, and is not now, a passing phenomenon. So truly does Jesus represent reality; so deeply entrenched in the ultimate truth of existence, is his life and teaching, that He, and not his opponents, will prevail. If the universe is a moral place (and Christ himself is the most convincing evidence that it is), then his prediction that he would triumph, even over those who killed him, must come true. Therefore let us treasure the august aspects of his personality, as much as his gentle features, for they signal a world order in which 'goodness', as Jesus taught it, will... reign---unopposed. The stone that was rejected, will become the capstone."

RWP: Most biologists are apolitical...
Phaedrus: Not when it comes to Evolution, which is driven by materialism and atheism -- it is dogma, not science.

RWP: Am I the only one expected to substantiate my claims? Or would you like to tell me how you propose to demonstrate the truth of this assertion? I know many, many biologists. Some are atheists. Some are not. I've never heard either strain argue that atheism drives evolution

Phaedrus: Baloney. Show me the Evolutionary equivalent of E=mc2. Evolution is a failed hypothesis, it is not even a credible theory.

E=mc^2 is a deduction, not a postulate. Are you asking me for a deduction from evolutionary theory?

(Long argument from me elided. Phaedrus comes back with:)

This is pure sophistry. I warned you that I would call you on this sort of thing. Care to try again? ,/i>

Oh, I thought you were going to expose my words as sophistry. Imagine my relief to find you think simply labelling them as sophistry is sufficient. My young son, when he's inarticulately mad, just shouts out 'You're a booger!'. Of course 'sophistry' sounds better, particularly among the crowd who are impressed you know to spell it with a 'ph'.

Phaedrus: Then you agree with me that species exhibit great stability over very long periods of time, not change. Has it ever been shown that "genetic drift" has ever resulted in a new species?

There's good evidence, I think, that several of the pairs of closely related bird species which were isolated by the Rockies and Great Plains developed distinct plumages largely as a result of genetic drift. Of course, they often still are interfertile, and there are always arguments whether Bullocks Oriole and the Baltimore Oriole, or the Lazuli and Indigo bunting, are distinct species. But then creationists seem to set much more store by the term 'species', a horrible unspecific and continually contentious categorization, that those of us who actually know some biology. Bullocks and Baltimore were two species, then they were one, now they're two again. You could argue that systematists, not evolution, caused speciation, but either way I don't think God worries too much about it.

There is also excellent evidence showing that the extent of flightlessness in isolated species of rails depends strongly on thow long they've been isolated on their particular islands, an example where large scale change occurred under huge selective pressure on a time scale of mere thousands of years.

Check out Feducca's The Origin and Evolution of Birds. Great book, esp. if you're a birder. He's considered a maverick, BTW; he doesn't beleive birds evolved from dinosaurs. Those monolithic doctrinarie evolutionists do have their little spats.

Now, RWProf, bacterial resistance to antibiotics results from degradation of the information content of the bacteria's DNA, which is not a favorable change. The bugs that mutated are alive. The ones that didn't are dead. You say mutation isn't favorable. Ergo, it is favorable to be dead. Now, that's sophistry.

As to the "development" of immunity, it seems to me that that capacity is already built into our genetic structure; i.e. it doesn't "evolve". Are we playing word games with "massive mutagenesis in your immune cell line"? What you're describing is development that was pre-programmed.

Nope. Random. The varible chains were, if you like, programmed to mutate; then the cell lines that face challenge from some particular immunogen they accidentally happen to be complementary to, propagate and multiply. Mutation, in this case, is most definitely favorable. And so your statement was incorrect. The nice thing about science is that it is verifiable in the real world.

Yes indeed. Do you gewt out in the real world, Phaedrus. Have you studied, even descriptively, any of the major animal groupings? Do you have any base of experience at all, outside of creationist tracts?

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