From: kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge)
Subject: Re: YOUNG EARTHERS _AND_ BIBLE CRITICS WATCH OUT! (huh?)
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 07:25:32 GMT

> From: muehlhau@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John Muehlhausen)
> Subject: Re: YOUNG EARTHERS _AND_ BIBLE CRITICS WATCH OUT! (huh?)
> Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 02:57:01 GMT
> 
> In article <BzIvu0.Fo8.2@cs.cmu.edu> kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge) writes:
> >> the heavens, looking down on the earth.  Yet, the second verse of
> >> Genesis 1 places the point of view under the cloud cover, on the
> >> surface of the waters.  It says, "The Spirit of God was hovering over
> >> the surface of the waters." 
> >
> >What cloud cover? We've gotten through Genesis 1:1 to 1:2, and now all of a
> >sudden there's this cloud cover that I don't recall seeing in Genesis 1:1.
> >Oh, that's right, the cloud cover needed to support Ross's reading of
> >Genesis 1.
> 
> The cloud cover that modern science tells us was there, and which does
> clarify things a bit, I must say...  Are you going to tell me that he
> invented this cloud cover?  

No, I'm going to tell you that there is nothing in the Genesis text to
suggest that the author of Genesis believed that there had been a cloud
cover, or is describing a situation in which there is a cloud cover. I'm
going to tell you that there is nothing in the text to support reading
Genesis 1:3 as "2.  transformation of the earth's atmosphere from opaque to
translucent" rather than as an _ex nihlio_ creation of previously
non-existent light. Same with "6.  transformation of the atmoshpere from
translucent to transparent (Sun, Moon, and stars became visible for the
first time)." This is not what the text says. This is how Ross reads the
text. The two are not the same.

> It is enough, therefore, to show that what is there is consistent, 
> which it is.  If you have evidence to the contrary, lets see it.

With pleasure. Ross has

> 5.  production of plants on the continent(s)

Here is the text:

> {Genesis 1:11}
> And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,
> and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
> itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

This is day 3, before the creation of water creatures and birds on day 5.
Unfortunately, fruit trees are angiosperms, and angiosperms didn't evolve
until about 140 mil years BP in the early Cretaceous, well after the
appearance of water animals. Ross is wrong; this is out of order.

Genesis 1:20-24 has birds created before reptiles ("creeping things") -- the
fossil evidence suggests birds evolved from dinosaurs. Again, Ross is wrong;
this is out of order.

Genesis 2:5 says that Eden was watered by a mist rising from the ground,
"for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth". Fossilized
marks from raindrops in mud which then dried have been found, and predate
humans. Ross is wrong; the data does not match the Genesis account.

Genesis has dry land emerging from the watery waste. Modern theories have
water exuded from the crust. Again, the Genesis order does not match current
scientific views.

Genesis 1:30 has all the animals being plant eaters. Are we to understand
that Ross claims there is no evidence of predation in the fossil record, or
does Ross explain the verse in some other fashion?

Genesis has land plants (5 in Ross' list) created before sea life (7 in
Ross' list). By the end of the Cambrian, almost all animal phyla had
appeared; plants were still limited to algae. Ross is wrong; the Genesis
order does not agree with the scientific evidence.

> >> We are told, too, that the earth's atmosphere (and/or
> >> interplanetary debris) blocked out the light that exists throughout
> >> the universe.  Light could not pass through to the surface.
> >
> >We are told no such thing. Ross is making the common Fundamentalist mistake
> >of conflating his reading of the text with the text itself. 
> 
> No, he is making the UNmistake of responsibly integrating science and
> scripture.  Genesis says it was dark even though we know the stars existed,
> and we also know with some certainty that there _was_ such a cloud cover
> through science, and scripture _does_ say that God was hovering over the
> _surface_ of the waters, which places the point of view under the cloud
> cover, and _responsibly_ explains the seeming contradiction.  

Thank you for proving my point by demonstrating that you also don't
understand the difference between a text and a reading of that text. Ross
post hoc applies modern scientific findings to generate a reading of the
text which is (he claims) consistent with the evidence, and then computes a
(bogus) probability of guessing the order of events in that reading of the
text to claim that the text is inspired. I'm not saying that I think his
conclusion is wrong -- even a blind dog hits the hydrant on occasion -- I'm
just saying that his argument doesn't support that conclusion.

> >> The following table lists the eleven major milestones in order, giving
> >> suitable English equivalents for those verbs. 
> >
> >For "major milestones" read "the events whose order happens to work out".
> >I have, for instance, a list of 41 items (anonymous, but "Based on the
> >initial work of Richard Nielssen as contained in THE CREATION RESEARCH
> >SOCIETY QUARTERLY, March 1980, pp. 220-221") which states in its
> >introduction, "Listed below is a close examination and comparison of the
> >supposed evolutionary sequence with that of the Biblical record. This
> >comparison reveals numerous contradictions which such reinterpretation
> >attempts are unable to harmonize." 
> 
> Don't keep me in suspense!  Lets see 'em!!

Here are excerpts chosen to avoid items arising from differences in the 
old Earth creationist and young Earth creationist readings of the text:
"THE EVOLUTIONARY SCENARIO            THE BIBLICAL RECORD
 5. The earth initially had a         5. The earth was created with a
    molten surface.                      cool, liquid surface. Gen 1:2
10. Land was formed before the       10. The oceans were formed before
    oceans.                              land appeared. Gen 1:9
13. Plants evolved over a long       13. Plants were created with seeds
    period of time.                      and fruit on their first day
                                         of existance. Gen 1:11-12
18. Many animals and plants          18. All animal and plant kinds have
    became extinct before man            lived contemporaneously with
    evolved.                             man. Gen 1:20-30, 2:20
19. Reptiles evolved into birds.     19. Birds were created before
                                          "creeping things." Gen 1:20-24
21. Early animals were carniverous.  21. Early animals were plant eaters
                                         and did not become carniverous 
                                         until after either the Fall or
                                         Flood. Gen 1:29,30
27. It has always rained upon earth. 27. Prior to the Flood there was no
                                         rain. Gen 2:5-6, 9:11-17
30. The first animals that could be  30. The first man, Adam, was a 
    considered as human were hunters.    gardener (Gen 2:15); later he
    Hundreds of thousands of years       became a farmer (Gen 3:17-19)...
    later man became a farmer.           No more than 9 generations later
                                         man became a hunter (Gen 9:3)"

> >> The odds that Moses could have guessed the correct order even if he
> >> were given the events are 1 chance in 40 million.

Given that 11! is 39,916,800, it seems pretty clear what Ross' model is.
It's a stupid model. No one would give an ordering in which land plants
appeared before the land. No one would give an ordering in which land
animals appeared before land. No one would give an ordering in which ocean
animals appeared before the oceans. No one would put the creation of any of
2-11 before the creation of #1 on Ross's list (can you picture a creation
account that described plants as created before matter?). 

> >Sorry, but if you have a list of N events, you can't pick a subset of 11
> >that happen to be in the right order, compute the odds of getting the order
> >of those 11 right, and ignore the ones that are wrong.

Actually, I'll put this more strongly -- even some of the 11 he does present
are not in the correct order, as shown above.

> >Let's see...70% of all forms of algae go extinct at the end of the
> >Precambrian, 90%+ of all marine species go extinct at the end of the Permian,
> >and all the dinosaurs + >50% of all invertebrate marine species go extinct
> >at the end of the Cretaceous, and you think *we're* in the middle of a big
> >extinction event?
> >
> >I suppose you have equally good evidence that the emergence of new species
> >has fallen off?
> 
> "According to the fossil record, more and more species of life came into
> existence through the millennia before modern man.  Through time, the
> number of extinctions nearly balanced the number of introductions, but
> introductions remained slightly more numerous.  Then came mankind.  In the
> years of human history, the extinction rate has remained high while the
> introduction rate measures a virtual zero.  

First of all, I'm skeptical of the accuracy of measurements of speciation
rates during the geologically very brief period anatomically modern humans
have existed. This is a _claim_ by Ross. What is his _evidence_ -- what
papers does he cite to support this claim?

Second of all, there have been a number of mass extinction events where the
extinction rate far exceeded the rate of introduction of new species over a
limited period of time.

> Though estimates of the
> current extinction rate vary widely, from a low of one species per day to
> a high of five species per hour, and though man's influence upon that rate
> is significant, even without man's impact at least one species per year
> goes extinct.

And how many species per year were going extinct at the end of the Permian,
when 90+% of all marine species went extinct?

> At the same time, as biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich
> report, "the production of a new animal species in nature has yet to be
> documented."  

Given the size of the haystack, and the number of people searching for the
needle, this is hardly suprising.

> Furthermore, "...in the vast majority of cases, the rate of
> change is so slow that it has not even been possible to detect an increase
> in the amount of differentiation."

That's right -- welcome to the wonderful world of punctuatated equilibrium.
Species evolve in peripheral isolates. If you don't stumble on the right
population, you won't see the differentiation. Also, the rate of species
appearance is not constant. Williamson's work with the Lake Turkana fauna
established that (NATURE 293:437).

> Only a theory...  I don't think it really matters, but it is something to
> think about.  At least give me that "day" does not mean a 24 hour period.
> This is simply a feature of the Hebrew word yowm, which can mean any
> unspecified length of time.

I'm not a young earth creationist, nor do I play one on TV, but from what
I've heard them say I see no reason to give you that. James Hall of Liberty
University points out that "yom" is used over 900 times in the OT for a
literal 24-hour day. Falwell claims "olam" is the word used in the OT for an
indefinite period, not "yom", citing Ex 31:16-17, Ps 33:6,7,9, Matt 19:4,
and I Tim 2:12-14 as evidence that the Genesis days are meant to be viewed
as literal 24-hour days.

Karl
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