Scientific resources for the Christadelphian. Part 2 - The American Scientific Affiliation

Although it has only been in existence since 2007, the BioLogos Foundation has managed to make a considerable impact in the area of Christian apologetics. Founded by medical geneticist Francis Collins, former director of the Human Genome Project who left in 2009 to become the director of the National Institutes of Health, its goal is simple: to invite "the church and the world to see the harmony between science and biblical faith as we present an evolutionary understanding of God’s creation."

When YEC 'peer review' breaks down - a tale of ICR incompetence

We've seen many times that YECs are grossly incompetent when it comes to trying to explain why the scientific evidence does not show an ancient, evolving Earth. They misrepresent the science, quote mine genuine experts, and when cornered, resort to special pleading. 

This incompetence spills over to interpreting the Bible, where they claim that the only way to read the creation narratives is literally, then abandon that exegetical approach when such a literal reading demonstrates that Genesis 1 teaches a solid firmament separating waters above from waters below, or shows a contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2 in the order and length of creation.

Now, as the always reliable Joel Duff reminds us, YECs show us that they fail at even reading the Bible, as can be seen by the the claim made by the Institute for Creation Research that "roughly half of Christ's references to Scripture were quotations from Genesis", with the implication being that "He understood the importance of origins to Christian doctrines." The claim that around half of the references by Jesus to the Old Testament came from Genesis is wrong. Flat out wrong. In descending order of frequency, the books that Jesus cites the most are Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Exodus. [1] If the YECs can't even read the Bible properly, let alone interpret it, then they have lost the right to be taken seriously as informed, competent commentators on the theology and science of creation.

Cain and Abel - asking the wrong questions of the text.

The special creationist claim that Cain and Seth married their sisters not only is a classic example of how fundamentalists forces the Bible into conflict with scientific facts (in this case the fact that the human race never was any smaller than several thousand people), but more importantly, as Biblical scholar Tim Bulkeley notes, the fundamentalist assumption that the narratives are mean to be read in a flat, literal manner as if written by 21st century historians for 21st century readers are asking the wrong question of the narratives.

Scientific resources for the Christadelphian. Part 1 - The American Scientific Affiliation

Part of the reason behind this website and its companion Facebook page is the pressing need to provide a resource for those who are well aware that our community's anti-evolution stance is made in defiance both of the scientific evidence, and contemporary Biblical scholarship which demonstrates that a literal reading of the creation narratives is untenable. Based on feedback I have received, it has been of great help in assisting a number of people, and this alone more than justifies enduring the occasional criticism, both moderate and splenetic.

However, while I appreciate that an in-house distillation of such information will always be of use to some Christadelphians who are reluctant to trust non-Christadelphian sources, [1] providing a list of reputable organisations [2] will help many people find quality information on evolution and creation which cannot be found in our community's mainstream print journals.

YEC's Colossal Failure - yet another YEC exposes the intellectual dishonesty of YEC

It's one thing to show why YEC is scientific and theological nonsense - this website is replete with more than enough information to make that point several times over. However, the most potent arguments against it come from former YECs, particularly the earnest, eager, zealous members, whose faith in YEC failed when they found evidence that undermined it. Even more damning is the usual response of the YEC hierarchy, which invariably is to belittle, insult, and demonise the YEC with doubts. 

Former YEC Samantha Field, in an article at Homeschoolers Anonymous notes how she was a dedicated, loyal YEC, doing her best to read all the YEC arguments at Answers in Genesis in order to be 'current with all the creationist arguments'. One can hardly call her a half-hearted YEC. Things changed when she began discussing the subject with others, and encountered the killer argument of shared identical endogenous retroviral elements. Field continues:

A criticism of Stephen Palmer's talks at the Coventry Creation Day - 14

Shooting the messenger, demonising biology, and the failure of fundamentalism

Stephen Palmer’s series of anti-evolution lectures break no new ground in Christadelphian evolution denialism. They show:

• A complete misrepresentation of what evolutionary creationists in our community believe
• A poor understanding of evolutionary biology, particularly in the failure to differentiate between evolution as fact and evolution as theory
• The use of long-refuted special creationist distortions of the evidence for evolution
• A naïve view of the creation narratives based on a literal reading which not only results in contradictions between Genesis 1 and 2, but contradictions between the sequence as shown in the fossil record, and a literal reading of Genesis 1.
• A failure to appreciate that as Genesis 1 accommodates a pre-modern cosmogeography, as shown by the clear references to a solid firmament, Genesis 1 is ancient cosmology, not modern science, and needs to be interpreted accordingly.[1]
• A world-view which owes little to the Bible, and much to evangelical fundamentalist views on Genesis 1-11 which infiltrated our community in the mid-20^th century when  books such as The Genesis Flood regrettably became popular

To see leading figures in our community give credence to a nonsensical view such as YEC is disturbing, given that this position was clearly seen as false by our community prior to the mid-20^th century.

A criticism of Stephen Palmer's talks at the Coventry Creation Day - 13

Australopithecus and onwards

The previous length discussion examined the fossil evidence close to the time of the human-chimpanzee common ancestor, and has been enough to show that the fossil evidence is not just a handful of teeth, and furthermore shows the existence of creatures that are not human, not ape, but have characteristics reminiscent of both. In other words, they are transitional. Space precludes an in-depth examination of the Australopithecus and Homo evidence[1], but the representative sample that follows will suffice to show that the fossil evidence for human evidence is substantial, and shows unarguable evidence of our evolutionary origins.