Honesty, Creationism, and Evolution

I got a letter on my Proof of Evolution site yesterday from a 16-year-old girl telling me that she believes her dad could answer questions I've had about evolution. She suggested a creationist named Brian Young as a good source of information.

The letter was sweet, and I encouraged her to follow Christ. My goal is not to preach evolution. My goal is to handle the evidence for evolution honestly, then show why truth, and especially truth about the creation, is not an affront to God. Rather, Jesus Christ is the truth.

Our proof that Jesus came from a real God and Father is not in scientific evidence. It is in the influence and power of the living God on a day to day basis, and it is in the influence that God makes on every person's heart. He testifies of himself in the heart of man, and he leaves humans without excuse for their unbelief.

However, evolution happened--there's too much evidence for me to deny it--and Brian Young provided more evidence for it today.

Honesty in General

Mr. Young told a great story about a man who walked into a doctor's office saying he was dead. The doctor tried to explain that there's no way he could be in his office, talking about this problem if he were dead.

The man objected, saying that dead people sometime have spasms that would explain his presence in the doctor's office that day.

After numerous tests did not convince the man, the doctor asked, "Well, do dead people bleed?"

The patient answered, "Why, no, I don't think they do. Their blood isn't flowing, so they shouldn't bleed."

So the doctor pricked the patient's finger with a needle, and blood dripped out.

"That's remarkable," said the patient. "Dead people do bleed!"

Honesty and Creationism

Brian Young used this story to point out that people often aren't moved by evidence. Instead, they simply adjust the evidence to maintain their own thinking.

As John Kenneth Galbraith once said:

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.

Obviously, Brian Young believes that it is those who believe in evolution who are deceiving themselves. He then gave an example.

The Oort Cloud

Young points out that no comet can have a lifespan of longer than 10,000 years. This isn't true (not even close), but let's operate on the assumption that it is.

Since, he says, comets cannot be older than 10,000 years, then the "logical assumption," according to Mr. Young, is that the Bible is correct and the universe is less than 10,000 years old.

He then accuses scientists of avoiding the evidence by hypothesizing an Oort Cloud, a collection of objects so far away from the sun, so small, and so far apart that we can't detect it, even with the hubble telescope. This Oort cloud is the source of new comets.

(That part's correct, though there's strong evidence for the Oort cloud, and several objects have been found that are believed to be part of the Oort cloud.)

It always fascinates—and irritates—me that a person with his eyes tightly shut to any argument disagreeing with him will accuse others of being biased.

Let's ask a question that Brian Young has to have heard because any person who knows the evidence would ask it. Since there are comets that could not have been in the solar system longer than 200 years, is the solar system then only 200 years old?

Would that not be the "logical assumption"?

Of course, it's not. The logical assumption is that comets less than 200 years old are new comets, and they came from some source. Thus, creationists are forced to draw the same conclusions that mainline scientists do: there is a source for new comets.

By the way, some comets have a lifespan of up to 30 million years. Those comets have such an elliptical orbit and are so near invisible when they don't have a tail that we have no way of knowing how many such comets there are.

Honesty and Evolutionists

Anti-evolutionists are constantly accusing scientists, as Brian Young did, of being unmoved by the evidence.

Strangely, though, when evidence has now been given that life did not originate in a "primordial soup," scientists are simply adjusting their view!

It appears they can change with the evidence!

What's worse, really, is that this doesn't solve the problem. I once heard Charles Colson, whom I have much respect for, remark on the radio that, "When new evidence comes along, evolutionists just change their theory to fit it!"

That's a problem? I thought the problem was not listening to the evidence!

One More Time

Sigh, unfortunately, with Brian Young, as with every other creationist I've ever examined, the errors pile up beginning with the very first argument.

It's not always this bad. For Brian Young, he gets both his facts and his conclusions wrong. There are creationists who get their facts right, and it's just their reasoning that is wrong.

Either way, one more time, it's the creationist that turns out to be the biased and thus inaccurate one, without even giving much effort to getting anything right.

This is not the way to have a testimony to the world that we are following the One who is Truth.