Scientific American threatens AiG : Demands immediate removal of Web rebuttal

AIG ^ | 2002/07/11 | AIG

[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.)

[Dominic Harr]

Did you bite me on the neck?

Metaphorically, perhaps.

You're infected now.

Actually, just pointing out what you're really arguing against.

It's not Darwin.

[agrace]

Look, I'm no scientist but I somehow got this crazy idea that there is a much greater difference between micro and macroevolution than simply time, with macro involving changes on the SPECIES level and micro involving changes within species. Please explain to me how time of any length could change one species to another, and evidence for me when and where we know that actually happened. THAT'S what many creationists have a problem with, NOT the age of the earth. There are plenty of creationists who accept the earth being billions rather than thousands of years old.

[Aric2000]

In my personal opinion, Gensis is a wonderful creation myth, it worked to explain the origins of man in a nonscientific community, it did an admirable job. It told a story and also taught a lesson. It's not a lie, it is a fictitious story, a fable if you will. You wish to beleive that this fable is absolute truth, well, that's fine and dandy.

God just told me that you owe me 25,000 dollars, please pay it electronically when you get the opportunity, you will be condemned unless you do.

Is that above statement true? It is written, I wrote it, I just told you that god told me, so hey, MUST be the truth, huh?

Fact of the matter is, you wish to believe in your fantasy of the creation myth, it's fine with me, but to try and debate scientific facts with the bible, is like trying to kill a bear with a little stick. It does nothing but upset the bear.

You wish to believe Genesis, please feel free, but do not STOP scientific discovery because you are afraid of what it might do to your fragile beliefs.

[gatechie]

"Evolutionists extrapolate from scientific findings"

Evolutionists extrapolate from their own cultural goals. Read the original theory by Darwin. It compels the higher life forms to rid the earth of the lower ones so they don't waste the earths precious resources. Sound like a scientific document? It was not. Charles Darwin was from the upper eschelons of society - he attended seminary (I think Catholic). He rejected his faith and went on his journey to prove there was no God in order to defend oppression of the poor by the rich. The churches were debating the legitimacy of the separation of the classes, claiming it was a violation of the Bible. The upper classes did not want to give up their position. This was their response. They didn't need God's authority, because there is no God. However, the god of nature - the god of science - made them higher and not only gave them the right, but the responsibility to take care of (or eliminate) the lower life forms since they were less evolved. Darwin's theory is nothing more than racist, elitist drivel written to justify his cultural and social power. Boy would he be surprised at all of the followers his "religion" has attracted.

Science, by definition does not account for why or who. It only addresses what and how. It cannot address when since there are no control objects, and we do not have current specimens to determine deterioration rates. Science prides itself on neutrality and absence of morality . AIDS is discussed based on physiological factors. Heart disease on how it shortens the life spann. Issues like divorce, political structure, or marital mate selection cannot be explained by it.

Evolutionists are no better than Creationists at using circular reasoning that contradicts itself. They predict the burn out time for the sun using one formula, but won't let critics "extrapolate" backwards to point out that if the earth is as old as they claim, it would be engulfed in the Sun, so how could the earth exist? There is proof that some evolutionary evidence has been "faked". Before we had DNA testing ability, it was easy to fool a lot of people with stuff like that. There is very little proof that doen't have counter evidence. For example, there is a river with a bedrock bottom out west that has human foot prints super-imposed in Dinosaur footprints - even though we didn't exist at the same time. It is like the movie Contact. If we were contacted by an alien life form. It would not change any one's opinion about the existence of God. Biological evidence like fetal heart monitors and EEG of human fetuses don't change any ones opinion about abortion. Dont even try to say that Evolutionists are objective, interested only in facts, but Creationists are only interested in defending their "faith". It is the belief that motivates the philosphy and not the philosophy that motivates the beliefs.

Nothing has actually changed - we have more knowledge and education (facts), but lack widsom and truth. My Christian dad believes in the theory of evolution. He believes it happened just as the evolutioists say, but God made it happen. Oh, he believes that God could make the world in six sets of 24 hours, he just doesn't believe that he did it that way - even though Genisis says he did. How does one reconcile that intellectually?

[Dominic Harr]

Please explain to me how time of any length could change one species to another, and evidence for me when and where we know that actually happened.

A bunch of little changes always add up to big changes.

It's only a matter of time.

If you change 1% of a species every million years, then in a hundred million years you'll have changed 100% of the species. You'd have an entirely different species.

You're no longer talking about the same species.

The only difference between 'macro' and 'micro' is the time involved.

Consider -- if the Earth is indeed 4+ billion years old, then you would have had millions and millions of changes over billions and billions of years.

Your argument is not with the Darwinists. You believe in evolution.

[That Subliminal Kid]

You seem unable or unwilling to grasp my point. My point is that science presupposes that every phenomena is natural! It can't prove that it is. So to say that everything evolved naturally is a statement of faith. It is exactly the same as "I believe in God, or fairies."

[f.Christian]

Is that a 3 note symphony...crescendo?

[That Subliminal Kid]

A species adapts to its environment. Some who can't die. The traits of those who survive are passed on to progeny. Does this mean that dinosaurs transformed into birds, etc? No. Do I believe this? Not really, but I freely admit I could be wrong.

[medved]

If you want to let TalkOrigins do your thinking for you, I can't help. They are probably the most one-sided, biased website on the subject that you can find. It is, in a word, propaganda.

A fairly good description of the basically dishonest nature of the talk.origins web site resides here

[OregonRancher]

To all posters.....

Would someone be kind enough to explain to me how a rattlesnake came to be??? Think a little before jumping in.

[Dominic Harr]

A species adapts to its environment. Some who can't die. The traits of those who survive are passed on to progeny.

That's all Darwinism says.

You may disagree about specific *applications* of Darwinism, like wolves into whales, dinos into birds, or that humans evolved -- but your beef is not with Darwin.

You *are* a Darwinist.

[Dominic Harr]

Would someone be kind enough to explain to me how a rattlesnake came to be???

Haven't a clue.

Why?

[f.Christian]

All I get is...I'm a darwinist t-shirt---pppppllllllllaaaaaaaaaaccckkk!

[Phaedrus]

I am telling you, as a working scientist - my c.v. is on line - who researches and publishes actively, teaches biophysics, and actively interacts with thousands of other scientists, that if you don't accept evolution, in my community you're considered either ignorant or a fruitcake. You can accept or reject that as you like; it's as good as any other first hand testimony. Evolution is *the* way we analyze how genomes came to be. It's no more controversial among biomolecular scientists than quantum mechanics or relativity is among physicists.

I'm curious; what's your basis for thinking that you have the intellectual wherewithal to expressed an informed opinion on evolution? How familiar are you with genetics, or comparative anatomy, or geology? Would you feel similarly qualfied in critiquing relativity without knowing any higher mathematics?

Well, with all due regard, your c.v. and your community don't count for much in this context. And you're just going to have to take it on faith that I'm neither ignorant nor a fruitcake, or not -- I am indifferent as to your opinion on this count. As for your "curiosity" about my intellectual wherewithal, it simply irritates. My words speak for themselves. Conversely, you want us to essentially take your word for it and, again, that won't fly here.

I am going to give you a short laundry list of evidence that does not support, and in many instances contradicts, the so-called theory of evolution. If you respond with semantic quibbles or by changing the subject, I am going to call you on it.

1. There are some 300,000 identified species with new species being found daily, yet there are at best a handful of transitional forms, all controversial. Where are the myriad missing transitional forms?

2. Why do species sometimes exhibit great stability over millions of years, not change?

3. Explain the Cambrian Explosion. (If you come back with Punk Eek, I will say you and Gould are speculating.)

4. What is the mechanism driving evolution? Just for the record, mutation is destructive and has never been shown to create new species. Never, anywhere, anytime. Chance is a wholly unscientific, ludicrous, anti-scientific argument. "Natural selection" is the passive environment, not a mechanism.

There's more but this is a good beginning.

[Dominic Harr]

All I get is...I'm a darwinist t-shirt---pppppllllllllaaaaaaaaaaccckkk!

:-D

[PatrickHenry]

You seem unable or unwilling to grasp my point. My point is that science presupposes that every phenomena is natural!

I understand your point, and it's wrong. You are putting words in science's mouth. I've been telling you -- and it seems to be you who is unable or unwilling to grasp the point -- that science has no capability of dealing with anything except natural phenomena. That's what science does. Science never says that there is nothing in the universe but matter and energy. But if anything of a purely spiritual nature exists, there's nothing science can do with it. You can't critizice scientists because they're not swamis.

[f.Christian]

Totally a materialistic bias that mutilates--butchers philosophy and science!

[medved]

I'm curious; what's your basis for thinking that you have the intellectual wherewithal to expressed an informed opinion on evolution? How familiar are you with genetics, or comparative anatomy, or geology? Would you feel similarly qualfied in critiquing relativity without knowing any higher mathematics?

I've got some news for you here which is likely to ruin your day: Einstein blew it with relativity and it doesn't require much in the way of higher math to comprehend the problem. Nothing Einstein ever said about gravity would allow anybody to think that there might have ever been any sort of a major change in gravity on this planet, yet it is a very easy demonstration that such a change has in fact occurred. My own findings regarding gravity, dinosaurs, and weightlifting are one facet of the problem.

Moreover, The gravitational attenuation required for the super animals of past ages extended into the age of man:

The column stone the man is sitting on is about 100'x20'x20'.

Those column stones were not created by dinosaurs and the Army Corps of Engineers has flatly asserted that no modern technology, much less any ancient technology, could move them (in present gravity that is).

The idea of the theory of relativity being blown to hell by a simple finding from the realm of the weightlifting sports is comical in the extreme and kind of makes a joke out of Time Magazine's naming Albert Einstein as the man of the last century. It kind of says old Al should have spent less time doing "thought experiments" and more time in the gym. I mean, somebody should have figured that one out 90 years ago.

Einstein was trying to use relativistic time to account for the fact that light does not obey the ordinary additive laws for velocities. This was based on what he called "thought experiments", such as the mirror-clock experiment, rather than upon anything resembling real evidence or real experiments. Thought experiments, it turns out, are not a terribly good basis for physics. Moreover, the basic approach is unsound. Louis Carrol Epstein ("Relativity Envisioned"), uses the following analogy: a carpenter with a house in which everything worked flawlessly other than one door which bound, would usually plane the door until it worked. He COULD, however, purchase a couple of hundred jacks and jack the foundation of the house until the one door worked, and then try to somehow or other make every other door and window in the house work again... Light is the one door in the analogy; distance, time, mass etc., i.e. everything else in the house of physics are the other doors and windows. Epstein assumes that relativity is the one case you will ever find in which that sort of approach is the correct one, nonetheless, common sense tells us it isn't terribly likely.

It turns out there is another way in which one could account for light not obeying additive laws, and that this other way is the correct one. That is to assume that light simply does not have a velocity; that it is an instantaneous force between two points, and that the thing we call the "velocity of light" is the rate of accumulation of some secondary effect. The story on this one lives on Ralph Sansbury's www site

The basic Ralph Sansbury experiment amounts to a 1990s version of the Michelson/Moreley experiment using lasers and nanosecond gates, which Michelson and Moreley did not have. Wal Thornhill's description of the basic Sansbury experiment and my own totally simpleminded description of it reside on the Bearfabrique Catastrophism page

The idea of relativistic time, of course, is unnecessary within the context of Sansbury's theory. Sansbury describes gravity as a kind of an electrostatic dipole effect, and the "instantaneous" propagation rate of gravity as the computed necessary speed of a subelectron particle which would in fact get you to one of the near galaxies in a couple of seconds.

[WaterDragon]

Scientific American used exactly the same tactics to silence Bjorn Lomborg's response to their criticism of his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist"

Scientific American no longer is a scientific magazine. It tolerates no dissent or questioning of its political views. Heil Hitler!

[medved]

I am telling you, as a working scientist - my c.v. is on line - who researches and publishes actively, teaches biophysics, and actively interacts with thousands of other scientists, that if you don't accept evolution, in my community you're considered either ignorant or a fruitcake.

Simple solution: find some new friends.