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Scientific American threatens AiG : Demands immediate removal of Web rebuttal
AIG ^ | 2002/07/11 | AIG

Posted on 07/11/2002 9:44:50 AM PDT by ZGuy

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.)


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: creation; crevo; crevolist; evolution
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To: PatrickHenry
In Animal Crackers, when a painting stolen from his hotel room is recovered Groucho instructs, "Get it back to the room and let's try leaving it unlocked this time!"
1,441 posted on 07/26/2002 8:14:22 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: Tribune7
I don't think G3K knows about your rebuttals in posts 1406 and 1410. It seems you forgot to address them to him.

They could be glued to his forehead and he wouldn't know about them.

1,442 posted on 07/26/2002 8:47:03 AM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: Dominic Harr
'Speciation' is typically considered part of 'micro' evolution by the evos.

The events that lead to speciation are microevolutionary events. But it takes many microevolutionary events to result in speciation. Of course, macroevolution can't be uncoupled from microevolution and creationists are foolish to think otherwise.

1,443 posted on 07/26/2002 6:01:29 PM PDT by Nebullis
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To: VadeRetro
Translation: "I cannot defend myself except to flee."

Point of order: The Phae-ster is clearly using the time-honored hands-over-the-ears-defense, "Laa laa laa, I'm not listening, I can't heeeeeear you!"

1,444 posted on 07/26/2002 8:03:17 PM PDT by Dominic Harr
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To: Nebullis
Of course, macroevolution can't be uncoupled from microevolution and creationists are foolish to think otherwise.

Yes, exactly. And I think we here on this thread just discovered something very powerful.

This 'micro'/'macro' redefinition of theirs is the critically weak point of their argument. It proves they believe in evolution.

When confronted with that point by several folks here, each and every creo ran from it, even the prolific medved, who seemed willing to try and drown any debate out with sheer word-count. Yet he ran from this question like a little girl twice now, in two threads.

Fascinating, really.

1,445 posted on 07/26/2002 8:07:30 PM PDT by Dominic Harr
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To: Dominic Harr
To: Right Wing Professor

You evolutionists have been a sad disappointment. You try to debate science/theology, but you don't have any first hand knowledge of anything spiritual/philosophical. If, say, one of you was able to discuss the relationships of human/Divine thought--relationships--prophecy from a scriptural or righteousness or reconcilliation standpoint, we would at least be able to discuss cold, hard indisputable Gospel--Truths, rather than ideologies and straw gods/men. But none of you seem to know even the rudiments of descriptive theology. Heavens sakes man: you do need to accept God/Christ/Creation to have a working knowledge of American history; New Jerusalem managed/re-creation coming .



1394 posted on 7/24/02 9:26 PM Pacific by f.Christian

1,446 posted on 07/27/2002 12:26:06 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: PatrickHenry
Placemarker.
1,447 posted on 07/27/2002 1:31:16 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: f.Christian
Truths, rather than ideologies and straw gods/men

What does 'truths' mean to you?

Is it in any way tied to 'evidence'?

What place does 'real world evidence' hold in your evaluation of concepts?

1,448 posted on 07/27/2002 2:45:01 PM PDT by Dominic Harr
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To: Dominic Harr
Good News For The Day


‘I am the bread of life. . .(John 6:35).’

There was a day when Jesus stood up and announced to the people: I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE. The day before Jesus made that speech, he had amazed everyone by miraculously feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread. A lot of people had seen that miracle, so, the next day, they went to a lot of effort to find Jesus, in the hope that they would see something similar happen. They were hoping for more of the same. They were being led by their stomachs.

In response to them, Jesus said, Do not work for the food that spoils. You have gone to some trouble to seek me out in the hope that you will score another belly full. Your effort is misplaced. You need to work for food that does not spoil. You ought to labor for the food that will link you to the life of God.

Suppose every young person arriving in this world, could be given a piece of advice. One vital clue, that would set them on a course through life that would save him from wasting his time on vanities; that would keep her from going down dead end roads in futile endeavors. It is just such advice that Jesus is offering here. He is saying : Don't give yourself to that which will end in disappointment. Don't let the whole effort of your life be for nothing. Work for something that ultimately affirms your worth. Work for the bread that endures to eternal life.
I am the bread of life.


1,449 posted on 07/27/2002 8:48:45 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: f.Christian
I'm serious.

What's your definition of 'truth'?

Is it 'truth' only if it's in the Bible? Is that the only 'evidence' you consider valid?

I'm honestly interested in understanding you.

1,450 posted on 07/27/2002 10:07:09 PM PDT by Dominic Harr
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To: Dominic Harr
Were it not for the existence of sin in the world, says Calvin, human beings would believe in God to the same degree and with the same natural spontaneity displayed in our belief in the existence of other persons, or an external world, or the past. This is the natural human condition; it is because of our... presently unnatural sinful condition---that many of us find belief in God difficult or absurd. The fact is, Calvin thinks, one who does not believe in God is in an epistemically defective position-rather like someone who does not believe that his wife exists, or thinks that she is a cleverly constructed robot that has no thoughts, feelings, or consciousness. Thus the believer reverses Freud and Marx, claiming that what they see as sickness(Christianity) is really health and what they see as health(evolution/atheism) is really sickness.
1,451 posted on 07/28/2002 3:06:44 AM PDT by f.Christian
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To: All
... what they see as sickness(Christianity) is really health and what they see as health(evolution/atheism) is really sickness.
War is peace.
Ignorance is strength.
Freedom is slavery.
-- Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

1,452 posted on 07/28/2002 4:10:47 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: f.Christian
But what do *you* think?

What is a 'truth'?

Is 'evidence' from the real world important?

Or do you believe that the only evidence comes from the bible?

I'm starting to think it's the latter. If so, are you at least in touch with reality enough to understand why evidence from the real world is important to most people?

1,453 posted on 07/28/2002 8:26:56 AM PDT by Dominic Harr
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To: balrog666
Another humdrum placemarker.
1,454 posted on 07/28/2002 8:27:00 AM PDT by balrog666
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To: Dominic Harr
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."

Good News For The Day

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

"There is a certain inevitability about Christ. He is the fulfillment of Herod's worst nightmare. Herod killed John the Baptist, and when Christ followed, the ruler thought John had risen from the dead. In a sense, it was true. Jesus' first appeals to the corrupt king were made through the Baptist."

"Christ is uncompromising; inexorable. He is unpreventable, unstoppable, unavoidable. An outline of the creation's future is discernible in the personality of Jesus. The new world order will bear the stamp of his character."

"The invincibility of Jesus is good news. It confirms our deepest hope-that the highest values known to humankind, will overcome, and reign. It is good strengthening to believe that... Spirit---is higher than matter. No one really wants to inhabit a world where material values rule. The incarnation of such values are exampled by Adolf Hitler, or Idi Amin."

"It is good news to know that we are loved by a 'tough love'; a love that is not willing to give up, or let go, and hence, a love that suffers long. In short we are loved by a love that will triumph. "Love never fails."

Good News For The Day

‘He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whom it falls will be crushed.’ (Matthew 21:44)

"In his parable of the tenants, Jesus looks across the years of Israel's covenant privilege, and gives his interpretation of them. He sees that Israel's history can be stated in terms of its refusal to recognize Him-the rejected stone. Through the prophetic ministry, Christ had made many pre-incarnational appeals to his people. "How often would I have gathered you together, even as a hen gathers her chickens."

"Thus did Jesus claim deep involvement in his nation's history. The Jews had stumbled over the Christ of the Old Testament. Many times the people had been humbled and broken through its rejection of his claims. So it may be with us. Our life story can be understood as the tale of a person engaged in a quest to make terms with the Stone-with Christ."

"From the beginning, Christ has been present to us. Our first meeting with him was through the warmth and love of our mother; then our father, and later, teachers and mentors. Christ has been there in providence; in good and ill. We have bumped into him time and again, in our attempts to be free of his claims. We have fought tooth and nail for our freedom from God. We have been burned and bruised repeatedly. These seasons of brokenness have been gracious. They have been... signs to us---that life will not work any other way but Christ's way."

"God enable me to discern the ministry of Jesus, the Stone, in my life."

1,455 posted on 07/28/2002 12:52:45 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: All
Place ... MARKER!!!!
1,456 posted on 07/28/2002 1:48:12 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
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To: PatrickHenry; All
Main Entry: phi·los·o·phy
Pronunciation: f&-'lä-s(&-)fE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -phies
Etymology: Middle English philosophie, from Old French, from Latin philosophia, from Greek, from philosophos philosopher
Date: 14th century
1 a
(1) : all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts
(2) : the sciences and liberal arts exclusive of medicine, law, and theology
(3) : the 4-year college course of a major seminary b (1) archaic : PHYSICAL SCIENCE (2) : ETHICS c : a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology
2 a : pursuit of wisdom b : a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means c : an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs
3 a : a system of philosophical concepts b : a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought
4 a : the most general beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group b : calmness of temper and judgment befitting a philosopher

1,457 posted on 07/29/2002 12:10:53 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: VadeRetro
But where's the data point for soft-bodied trilobite precursor Spriggina?

From this link:

Although it is true that one or two of the Ediacaran forms such as Spriggina bear a superficial resemblance to the early trilobites, to date the detailed case for such an ancestry is far from compelling.

Where's the data point for bizarre not-fully-shelled Anomalocaris?

From the link you provided to anomalocaris:

Over one hundred years passed between the initial description of fossil parts of Anomalocaris canadensis and its recognition as a large, swimming predator of Cambrian ecosystems. The long history of innaccurate reconstructions and identifications exemplifies the great difficulty characterizing from fossil remains, Cambrian animals with no apparent living descendants. During that time, there were several distinct approaches to the conceptual classification of the animals of the Cambrian. Initially, Cambrian fossils were typically described as ancient members of phyla that exist today. This early phase of describing fossils in terms of familiar phyla was superceded by the idea of the Cambrian being the setting for the prolific and rapid generation of classes and phyla (the "Cambrian Explosion") that have gone extinct and cannot be classified as members of modern groups. In that phase, Cambrian "weird wonders" such as Opabinia, Hallucigenia, and Wiwaxia, joined Anomalocaris as examples of taxa without modern surviving descendants, and bearing bauplans so unconventional they deserved phylum status. Gould (1989) championed this viewpoint in his book Wonderful Life. In the 90s, the trend has been to recognize most of the Cambrian "wonders" as members of extant phyla, but often representing extinct classes. Hallucigenia, for example, is now considered a lobopod, akin to Onychophora, while Opabinia and Anomalocaris are considered members of an extinct arthropod class (with some workers still suggesting subphylum or phylum grade).

End quote

Is it possible that the reason there are no data points for these two animals is that they have no decendents, past or present, and thus are not phyla precursors as you suggest?

1,458 posted on 10/02/2002 12:22:06 PM PDT by Tares
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To: Tares
Is it possible that the reason there are no data points for these two animals is that they have no decendents, past or present, and thus are not phyla precursors as you suggest?

Actually, we can't know whether they had descendants or are dead ends. They present a morphologically intermediate appearance between taxa which creationists always draw as floating on air, unconnected at the base. Why are we not allowed to infer the obvious? If the later taxa (in this case, trilobites and more generalized arthropods) didn't descend from the fossil species in question, they should be inferred to descend from something related.

Here's a paper that should make you rethink the kind of argument you are attempting, Taxonomy, Transitional Forms, and the Fossil Record.

Moving further up the taxonomic hierarchy, the condylarths and primitive carnivores (creodonts, miacids) are very similar to each other in morphology (Fig. 9, 10), and some taxa have had their assignments to these orders changed. The Miacids in turn are very similar to the earliest representatives of the Families Canidae (dogs) and Mustelidae (weasels), both of Superfamily Arctoidea, and the Family Viverridae (civets) of the Superfamily Aeluroidea. As Romer (1966) states in Vertebrate Paleontology (p. 232), "Were we living at the beginning of the Oligocene, we should probably consider all these small carnivores as members of a single family." This statement also illustrates the point that the erection of a higher taxon is done in retrospect, after sufficient divergence has occurred to give particular traits significance.
What the fossil record gives you is a rather spotty picture, which rarely allows you to state with confidence that Species A and not Species B was in the direct ancestry of Species C. But it does show that as you go back in time, seemingly unrelated life forms start to resemble each other. Theropod dinosaurs get so hard to tell apart that you can argue whether a species like Caudipteryx belongs in one bin or the other. (There's no problem like that between modern birds and any modern repiles.) The linked paper shows the same thing for reptiles and mammals, fish and amphibians.

There's a tree of life. You can plot every fossil and a separate point, draw a vertical line up from it as though no connections existed, and what you get doesn't look like a tree. But that doesn't prove the connections don't exist. Your ability to lawyer away, misunderstand, ignore, and forget data does not change reality one iota.

1,459 posted on 10/02/2002 1:21:14 PM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
Actually, we can't know whether they had descendants or are dead ends.

If this is true then they should not be used as examples of evolutionary precursors to existing phyla.

They present a morphologically intermediate appearance between taxa which creationists always draw as floating on air, unconnected at the base. Why are we not allowed to infer the obvious? If the later taxa (in this case, trilobites and more generalized arthropods) didn't descend from the fossil species in question, they should be inferred to descend from something related.

And when a fossil of "something related" is found, it can be plugged in on the tree at the appropriate point of divergence. There is little or no evidence that either Spriggina or Anomalocaris should be plugged in at the points your post suggests.

The article you linked to does not mention Spriggina or Anomalocaris, it only talks about vertibrates.

There's a tree of life. You can plot every fossil and a separate point, draw a vertical line up from it as though no connections existed, and what you get doesn't look like a tree. But that doesn't prove the connections don't exist. Your ability to lawyer away, misunderstand, ignore, and forget data does not change reality one iota.

I was not attemting to challenge the entire theory of biological evolution and every piece of evidence. What I did challenge was the assertion that Spriggina and Anomalocaris are viable candidates for present day phyla precursors.

From your original link about Anomalocaris:

In the 90s, the trend has been to recognize most of the Cambrian "wonders" as members of extant phyla, but often representing extinct classes. Hallucigenia, for example, is now considered a lobopod, akin to Onychophora, while Opabinia and Anomalocaris are considered members of an extinct arthropod class (with some workers still suggesting subphylum or phylum grade).

Doesn't sound like a very viable candidate for ancestor to multile phyla, as your posting seems to suggest.

1,460 posted on 10/02/2002 8:17:56 PM PDT by Tares
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