Talk:Answers in Genesis/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents


This article is not an advertisement for a group calling itself "Answers in Genesis". This religious group promotes the litteral interpretation of the bible in all fields of science (i.e.: earth created in six days 6000 years ago, men living contemporary with the dinosaurs, strongly anti-evolution, etc.). Among their agenda, they do not wish to remove the teaching of evolution, plate techtonics, modern cosmology, etc. from U.S. public schools. The line about linking evolution with "eugenics, homosexual behaviour, abortion, racism" is correct. do not remove this article . --Sarch 23:34, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It is rubbish to claim that AiG "wish to remove the teaching of evolution, plate techtonics(sic), modern cosmology, etc. from U.S. public schools." First, AiG have no problem with plate tectonics per se nor with cosmology beyond the Big Bang, etc. Second, AiG have consistently opposed removal of teaching evolution, insteading preferring that teachers be allowed to teach both evolution and creation. Philip J. Rayment 03:30, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've had to slice a lot of POV out of some recent additions. Please keep in mind that Wikipedia is not to be used for promotional purposes. We don't aim to tell everybody how good AiG's Answers are; the aim is to record that they hold a particular view and how they go about spreading that view.
Could someone add some stats on the amount of participants, subscribers etc.? JFW | T@lk

The information on AiG's 'evolution=racism' theory, see One Blood: One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism ([1]), which I have taken the time to read and feel I do a pretty good job of summarizing their argument about the history of evolution (I was consulted awhile back as a historian who has done some work on the history of scientific racism to look into the historical content of their work; for those who care, they are not wholly incorrect in the atrocities done in the name of science, though I think their extrapolations from such history are, in my opinion, philosophically unsound). From the AiG page on the book linked above:

"More than half a century has passed since the horrors of the Nazi racial extermination camps were revealed to a disbelieving world. Yet the battle of ethnic hate and violence remains one of the burning issues of our time.
Billions of dollars are spent fighting it. Oprah devotes entire programs to it. Presidents consult civic and religious leaders: everyone seems to be wrestling with the problems of racial prejudice, yet solutions evade us.
But what does ‘race’ really mean? Are there really multiple races of humans, and where did this concept originate? The Bible says in Acts 17:20 that God has ‘made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.’ So, is there really such a thing as ‘the white race’ or ‘black race’? You will be astounded at the easy-to-understand scientific facts, and how they line up with the often-overlooked simplicity of God’s Word.
In this ground–breaking book, you will read, perhaps for the first time, about racism’s evolutionary connections, and the powerful answer from Genesis.
For a real solution to ethnic hatred, read this copy of One Blood. You’ll see this explosive debate in a whole new, startling light."

Also see this (esp. this and this and this and this). I'm not making this stuff up, I don't think I'm misrepresenting their views, and this is one of their major lobbying pushes and has been responsible for anti-evolution legislation sponsorship in Louisiana, at the very least. Most people "in the biz" know about AiG because of their race stuff, it deserves mention. If you want to edit it, feel free, but don't just drop it without a word. --Fastfission 01:07, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

66.81.142.121, everything I've posted is straight from their mouth, and couched in the same terms they use. It's not out of context, it's not even biased. I think that their ideas are ridiculous, but I've still taken care to present them correctly as their ideas, as they would state them. If you have specific objections, please feel free to list them here, don't just get into a revert war. There's no "opinion" in it -- it's a description of their beliefs. If you disagree with my description, post why or change it to better fit the way you would describe their beliefs -- don't just delete it; that's not how Wikipedia works. --Fastfission 02:14, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Teachings and beliefs

I've substantially copyedited this section. I believe that it now presents the views of the organisation in a more neutral way. It seemed subtly critical to me - phrases like "they even go so far as to claim..." felt out of place. I'm still not sure it's perfect - additional thoughts welcomed. -- ALargeElk | Talk 16:32, 6 Jul 2004 (U

This section concentrates too much on the racism aspect. Sure, that is one of their platforms, but only one of several. Philip J. Rayment 03:30, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Changes as at 14th Sept. 2004:

  • Corrected and expanded the history and organisational aspects.
  • Changed "scientific degrees" to "scientific qualifications", on the assumption that the former doesn't allow for qualifications other than degrees (although I'm not an expert in this area).
  • Changed "apparently assuming that disproving evolution gives evidence for Creation." to "on the basis that disproving evolution gives credence to Creation", because (a) this is not something that they assume but something that they argue, and (b) it is pejorative to say this when evolutionists do the same (i.e. argue against creation as though that supports evolution). Even so, I'm not convinced that it is fair to say that "many of their arguments are arguments against evolution...". It may be accurate, but possibly misleading. I don't suppose anyone has actually done a study of what proportion fall into that category?

Philip J. Rayment 03:30, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Disproving evolution doesn't support creationism. Thus it's not a "basis". - Nunh-huh 03:37, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That's your POV, and your change is not NPOV. Saying "on the basis that" is, in my opinion, stating a fact that this is the (claimed) basis on which they do it, and it is neutral as to whether or not that basis is valid. However, upon further consideration, I have reworded it to claim and counter-claim. Philip J. Rayment 12:48, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well, it's not a question of POV whether or not disproving evolution supports Creationism -- that's a question of basic scientific logic (just as disproving Special Relativity would not make Maxwellian theories about space any more true). However I'm happy enough with the current version of it. --Fastfission 13:23, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm glad of that. And it is technically correct that disproving evolution does not prove creation (by the way, why "evolution" but "creationism"?), but in practical terms, if there are only two serious candidates around, disproving one does lend support to the other. Philip J. Rayment 16:23, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
No, it doesn't work that way. "Disproving" Maxwellian EM via the Michelson-Morley experiment does not, on its own, show the validity of General Relavity, but does spark one to look for other ideas. "Proving" (all of this proof and disproof is really not correct for talking about science anyway, but I think we all know that here) that starlight is bent around the sun, however, does point one in a definite direction. Anyway it doesn't matter much for this, except that it is worth noting that they do indeed spend most of their efforts trying to disprove Evolution rather than prove Creationism (like most Creationists). --Fastfission 18:51, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Double standards -- many evolutionists, including Darwin and Gould, have argued, in essence, that God wouldn't have done it that way, so evolution must have. And many evolutionists have said that evolution must be true because the only alternative is creation. So it's hypocritical to object to the disjunctive syllogism when creationists use it, but OK it when evolutionists so.[2]220.244.224.8 08:21, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I haven't done a study of what proportion, but it's definitely a high enough amount to warrant being called "many" (notice that it doesn't say "most"). As for the race stuff, it's one of their unique approaches, which is why it is mentioned prominently (most of their other stuff is run-of-the-mill Creationism/anti-Evolutionism). --Fastfission 12:01, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, you may have a point about the racism bit, although other distinctives are their reliance on the Bible, with the science as secondary, and their willingness to withdraw arguments found to be unsupportable. But then you (I assume) are looking at it from the American point of view, where I think they emphasise the racism aspect more than here in Australia (due to the local circumstances in each case). I did notice that it was "many", but "many" could mean 100 out of 1000, i.e. still a reasonably small percentage, yet I don't think that would be the impression a reader would get, which is why I didn't say that "many" is wrong, but possibly unfair. Philip J. Rayment 16:23, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In the spectrum of Creationist groups, if I were to vaguely categorize from my experience, I would say that you usually get mostly one of two groups: straight-religion Creationists (who use very little science) and the "scientific" Creationists (who purport to use a lot of science). I suppose AiG is somewhat unique in that it tries to be both at the same time. At the same time it talks about needing to maintain Biblical statements as axioms, it also tries to engage with modern anthropology and genetics. As for the racism aspect, yes, I'm looking at it from the US point of view. Regardless, I think "many" is fair enough, and accurate enough. --Fastfission 18:51, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Quality of writing

It's a poorly written article, even though each sentence is grammatically correct. It raises more questions than it answers, and the few explanations it gives are vague.

I wish the article would explain what the connection is between espousing evolution and being a racist. For example, did anyone say that people whose skin color is fillintheblank are smarter/stupider, nicer/meaner, etc., because they evolved that way? --Uncle Ed 15:28, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, many people did. If you look at the articles on scientific racism and eugenics, which are linked from this article, they have more of that story. --Fastfission 15:49, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I removed the long inclusion as it is only one of AiG's statements of belief and it doesn't represent the entire organization's thrust.
Removed stuff follows. Joshuaschroeder 17:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

AiG points to the history of scientific racism and eugenics to show that many early practitioners of evolutionary theory were themselves racists, and used evolutionary theory to add a veneer of scientific authority to their claims. For example, Hunter's Civic Biology (1914), the book that Scopes supposedly taught from and the ACLU defended in the famous 1925 trial, explicitly taught white supremacy and eugenics:

“Although anatomically there is a greater difference between the lowest type of monkey and the highest type of ape than there is between the highest type of ape and the lowest savage, yet there is an immense mental gap between monkey and man … . At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the others in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.” (pp. 195–196)
“… if such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways of preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country.” (pp. 263–265)

AiG also connects belief in evolutionary theory with the eugenics and racial theories of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. In response to the violent history of Christianity, the group claims that anyone who used the Bible to justify atrocities (such as during the Crusades or the colonization of the New World) was clearly misinterpreting the Bible's intent (e.g., Jesus says to love your enemies and bless them that curse you [Matthew 5:44]).

Merged with this approach are the conclusions of modern anthropology about the meaninglessness of the category "race" which they see as supporting their interpretation of scripture. Using this line of argument, AiG argues that Creationism, along with other Biblical teachings, is the only true answer to the social problem of racism, and that Evolution has (and still does) promote racism.

I reinserted the last two paragaphs. I think a little bit more elaboration on this point is necessary (I thought this originally because, as you can see a bit further up on this page, there was some confusion about what exactly they meant by that), as it is one of their more unique contributions as a creationist group (they have a number of books and talks specifically about this issue). I agree that we don't need lots of details, and any attempt to quote from trials, books, etc. is going to be cherry-picking anyway, because the literature on early conceptions of race and evolution is complicated and large, and this is not the place for it. --Fastfission 22:53, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)]]

Some historians, etc.

The literature on the history of the concept of "race" and its connections to science is long and complicated. To try and get into it here is going to be a waste of space—in order to not be cherry-picking facts one way or another, it would require more length than this entry warrants. An entry on Race and evolutionary theory could be fun but I don't trust someone who gets their history (and their methodology) from AiG to write it. I think it suffices to note that AiG's version of the history would not hold weight with historians. The problem with the posting of a single book is one of misrepresentation. I am reasonably sure that the author there is smart enough to realize that saying that the Nazis used evolutionary conceptions to justify their racist ideas or a textbook on evolution used in the Scopes trial contains racist ideas is not the same thing as evolutionary ideas necessitate racist ideas (which is what AiG claims). Any freshman in philosophy ought to be able to identify that simple fallacy, even without knowing the complex history of "race", or commenting that the lifting of two lines from a textbook without historical context is entirely inappropriate historical methodology. I'm happy with saying, "AiG believes this, here is a link to their arguments and evidences, but by the way most historians would dispute their conclusions, and most philosophers and scientists with half a brain would spot this fallacy from a mile away," which is quite obvious if you've read the literature on the subject, whatever you think of Creationism or Evolutionary theory. AiG commits a pretty obvious logical fallacy with this, and is riding on the hope that 1. biologists don't know their history and will categorically deny it (often true, unfortunately), 2. modern sentiment towards race is heightened and this gives AiG a nice moral high-ground, 3. conflating evolution with racism will allow AiG to cause a significant split along liberal/conservative platforms (i.e. Southern Black Democrats, traditionally not supporters of Creationism, may be more sympathetic to Creationist legislation). --Fastfission 05:30, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your preferred wording is pretty POV-ish itself.
I removed the following paragraphs...

Some historians of race and science would likely argue that AiG's version of this history is fairly oversimplified, focusing only on the instances which support its thesis, applying a double-standard to religion, and ignoring the ways in which modern evolutionary theory has repudiated many of these past conceptions.


A modern supporter of evolution would likely say that while such interpretations may have been made of evolution in the past, that they were not required for the scientific accuracy of the theory, and that modern use of evolutionary theory does not endorse such interpretations.

If it said "Some historians of race and science argue that AiG's version..." it would be weasel words. But this was worse, merely suggesting that those anonymous historians would likely argue! It doesn't deserve to be there. The same goes for the second paragraph. To put them back in, find someone to quote. But remember this is about AiG and their views, not about yours.
Philip J. Rayment 10:31, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately to my knowledge no historians have actually bothered to address AiG's view. But I've thought of a better way to word it. And please justify your re-posting of their cherry-picked text before re-posting it; it's clearly taking things out of context (both from the text, and from the time). --Fastfission 13:39, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your rephrasing looks pretty reasonable to me. There are some acute challenges to NPOV here; clearly we don't want to 'put words in their mouths' in representing their views, but it's unreasonable to construe this as license to quote them at abitrary length, factuality, pertinence, or indeed notability. It would be absurd to have to find a 'notable historian' to put their views in any sort of semblance of a NPOV context (as it's required to be), when they hardly rise to that standing themselves. Alai 18:53, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Actually, there was a section by Richard Weikart, who really is a historian of modern European history, and he did argue that there was a clear link between Darwinism and Nazism. So it seems that AiG has a case, and certainly doesn't warrant a blanket claim about what (un-named) historians might say. And the textbook the ACLU defended at the Scopes trial shows that such thoughts were widespread in the American educational establishment too. It does not violate NPOV to point these things out. 220.244.224.8 08:23, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
But as far as I know, Weikart was not directly commenting on AiG's specific claims: rather, you're juxtaposing the one in (incorrectly) implied support of the other. It's not NPOV to 'point these things out', but the net effect is far from NPOV in the round, as it hints at some consensus among historians (a practical impossibility at the best of times) that evolution proponents are racist (or more racist than creationists, or more racist than creationists'd like them to be, or something). If some semblance of editorial balance occurs, an inclusion of these quotes may make more sense. Alai 14:13, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Seems to me that what 220 meant was: someone made a general comment that "historians would disagree that there is the Darwinism-Nazism link AiG claims; in reply, 220 noted that there was one highly qualified European historian who argued that there WAS such a link. Of course he wasn't commenting on AiG directly; but his book is a strong point in AiG's favor, and against the unsubstantiated generalisation to the contrary. 138.130.194.229 08:18, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Both of you anonymous contributors are arguing against a point which has never been made. I agree completely that the Nazis (and many others) used Darwin to justify their ideology. The question is whether or not AiG over-simplifies this history (they do), whether they are happy to generalize for Darwin what they won't do for religion (i.e. modern Darwinists have to take credit for past Darwinist acts, whereas modern Christians don't have to take credit for past Christian acts), and whether or not they draw illogical conclusions from it and claim that scholars support them (i.e. taking Darwinism causes racism from the statement some racism justifies itself with Darwinism). I'm content with it as it currently stands, though. --Fastfission 17:11, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
As explained, atrocities of christendom were incompatible with the teachings of Christ; the atrocities of evolutionary regimes were not incompatible with evolutionary theory. Indeed, even evolutionists such as Sir Arthur Keith argued that Hitler's whole aim was to apply evolution to German society.[3] 220.244.224.8 09:04, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
There were plenty of people who interpretted lots of awful things as consistent with the Bible, and there are plenty of people who don't consider many awful things consistent with evolution. A nice, scholarly book on the ways in which people were able to derive practically any social conclusion they wanted from whatever beliefs they had in early US race theory is Bruce Dain's A Hideous Monster of the Mind. It's one thing to say that AiG says that those people "weren't really Christian," it's another thing to state that they were, in fact, not. The former is a proper attribution of POV (AiG's), the latter is stating an opinion as being true. Again, you're also missing the point I'm trying to make. The question is not whether some people used evolution to justify awful things -- they surely did -- but whether or not a belief in evolution necessitates those sorts of opinions. Scientifically speaking, it doesn't. Similarly one can say that many people used the Bible to justify horrible things, but belief in the Bible does not necessitate those conclusions. --Fastfission 01:49, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Postmodern nonsense about how people allegedly interpreted the Bible to support certain thing should not fool anyone. For example, it is not just an interpretation of the Bible that the curse on Ham resulted in black people, for the plain and simple reason that the Bible doesn't even have a curse on Ham! Furthermore, many of the atrocities were committed in an age where biblical literacy was very low. AiG's claim is that these acts were t consistent with Christian teachingswhich is an objective claim; it is NOT a claim about whether they were or were not Christians. You also need to learn what "consistent with" means, and it is not "entailed by". Nazi morality is certainly consistent with evolution, as Sir Arthur Keith pointed out, but not entailed by it, as most modern evolutionists would reject it.220.244.224.9 04:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It isn't postmodern nonsense, it's a history of racial thinking. See Bruce Dain, A hideous monster of the mind, which is all about race theory before Darwin was around and people had the option of a non-Biblical interpretation. It's all over the map. Neither a belief in evolution or the Bible seems to have ever constrained anyone's pre-held opinions on race. I'm happy with AiG saying that such behavior is inconsistent with their interpretation of Christian teachings, but "Christian teachings" can be interpretted as a lot of things. --Fastfission 05:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

TJ peer review

though the peer-review process is not similar to that found in the mainstream scientific community, but is limited to those who subscribe to AiG's statement of faith

I'm assuming that PJR, who deleted this without any prior discussion, has a counter-example in mind? Alai 20:09, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, but the history of this was as follows:
  • Joshuaschroeder inserted though the peer-review process is limited only to those who subscribe to AiG's statement of faith. without any discussion other than an edit comment characterizing the staff. which I believe related more to another change he did at the same time, and not to that particular phrase.
  • 138.130.194.62 changed it to though the peer-review process is usually by those who subscribe to AiG's statement of faith. with the edit comment "peer-review process is usually by those who subscribe to AiG's SoF" (my understanding is that they do check with non-YECs sometimes. Any proof of the universal assertion?)
  • Joshuaschroeder reverted it back to what it he had in the first place with the edit comment rv -- they definitely do not allow non-Christians to review articles for TJ or Creation.
  • 138.130.194.62 reinstated his change, with the edit comment Has Schroeder a pipeline into AiG review procedures..
  • Equanimity removed those words entirely with the edit comment "Peer review" obviously means "those who are likeminded or equal." This means that it is self evident that the peer review process is those of people with likeminded ideas and/or equally qualified.
  • Joshuaschroeder put in a new version: though the peer-review process is not similar to that found in the mainstream scientific community, but is limited to those who subscribe to AiG's statement of faith. with no edit comment.
  • I removed the new version with the comment Remove unsubstantiated commentary.
No prior discussion? No, there's been plenty, its just that it was in the edit comments. And it was Joshuaschroeder that failed to justify or even explain his original insertion or reinstatement. The onus is on him to show why it should be there.
Philip J. Rayment 14:59, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
OK then, if you'd prefer, discussion entirely in the wrong place, on both your parts. Thanks for the clarification, I'll edit it in line with your stated understanding, and we can take it from there. Your burden-of-proof characterisation is a little skewed; it's also required to demonstrate what sort of peer review TJ does undertake, as with no context this could be interpretted in a number of ways. Alai 16:54, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
<<OK then, if you'd prefer, discussion entirely in the wrong place, on both your parts>>
Both? There were four people involved, and most of it wasn't mine. And while I believe that your comment may well not have been meant as a criticism, I would point out that it is very difficult to be fully aware of all the many rules and guidelines of Wikipedia.
<<Your burden-of-proof characterisation is a little skewed; it's also required to demonstrate what sort of peer review TJ does undertake, as with no context this could be interpretted in a number of ways.>>
Pardon? It's not skewed at all. And I haven't found another journal article on Wikipedia that "demonstrate[s] what sort of peer review" they undertake, so why is TJ singled out for this?
Philip J. Rayment 03:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
OK, all four then, I sit corrected. Indeed it is; thus it surely rarely hurts to point them out (on policies and guidelines). I say your characterisation is skewed, because it's not up to either 'side' to demand the other 'prove' statements, it ought to be an equal duty on all participants to provide as factual and NPOV content as possible. As to why such a qualifying statement is necessary: is it transparent who the 'peers' of a creation geologist are? In the 'secular literature', that would be a geologist, regardless of other criteria. In this context, it could be read as peer-geologist, peer-creationist, peer-YEC, or combination thereof. Alai 03:25, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I say that it should be up to Joshuaschroeder to defend his insertion, which he had failed to do. In contrast, the two editors (prior to me) that amended it or took it out did justify their actions in the edit comments.
On peer review, is it transparent who the peers of an evolutionary geologist are? In the secular literature, that is often/usually at the discretion of the editor and is not transparent at all (and on this point is probably the same with creationists), and would almost certainly be another evolutionary geologist. Why would there be any doubt that a reviewer for a creationary article wouldn't be another creationary geologist. The only reason I can think of is unsubstantiated and bigoted anti-creationist rhetoric.
Philip J. Rayment 13:40, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Are you characterising my current text (largely taken from AiG itself) as such? If AiG felt the need (or urge) to so describe it, I don't see what's unreasonable about doing so here. (I found this on what was, I think, the first google hit on AiG where the term "peer review" was used to apply to TJ.) I don't think anyone making an attempt at neutral, standard terminology would even think there even was such a thing as an "evolutionary geologist", but regardless of how biased you suppose mainstream geological journals might be, they are the mainstream, and I submit that such qualification, is at the very least, considerably less necessary in such cases. Alai 16:38, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Your current wording is clearly an attempt to be fair, unlike some others' edits, which is why I haven't deleted it. However, AiG's purpose in mentioning it in that article was in the context of addressing concerns about individual creationists that spout their personal ideas as though they had as much validity as the consensus of experts. In other words, putting the comment there was a bit like explaining what peer-review is in an article about peer-review or the need for it. This is not that context. (Did you read the entire introduction to that AiG article?) Secondly, I'm not convinced that the phrase "mainstream creationist experts in their field" that you quoted actually referred to the peer-review process. The full sentence is "Creationists are encouraged to present articles/papers for peer review and possible publication so that theories, evidence etc., can be tested by mainstream creationist experts in their field." So is the "testing by mainstream creationist experts in their field" (in this sentence) something that happens as part of the peer-review process, or something that happens as a result of being published? I would lean towards the latter. Philip J. Rayment 11:46, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


On one level it is peer review because it is reviewed by one's peers, however it is clearly not "scientific peer review". And so the distinction needs to be made; "peer reviewed by creation scientists" perhaps Dunc|☺ 16:24, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How is it "clearly not 'scientific peer review'"? Philip J. Rayment 03:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Because YECs are not part of the scientific community. Otherwise they would be appearing in proper scientific journals and wouldn't need their own. Now, their exclusion could be due to the evil atheist conspiracy, or it might have something to do with evidence and coherency. Dunc|☺ 14:39, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Or to put a middle case: you could publish in a mainstream journal evidence that Felidae had speciated rapidly over a timescale over a few thousand years, or that such and such a geological process had occurred very rapidly, if you had the quantifiable data to back it up. What you couldn't do is publish an article citing scriptural authority for this being the case (either as well as or instead of the data). Creationists may (and do) cite this as a philosophical bias (evil naturalists, as it were), but it's a good deal less persuasive that there's a scientific bias. Alai 16:38, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Once more, Duncharris shows why we should have no confidence in him to act as sysop in anyting to do with this issue. Read Crichton about this: consensus is politics, not science. If it's consensus, it's not science. In any case AiG has at least 10 Ph.D. scientists, so where does Duncharris get off decreeing that YECs are not part of the "Scientific community"? Also, no one is saying there is any "conspiracy", just an a priori shared commitment to materialism. 138.130.194.229 04:24, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Anti-creationists claim that creationism is not, by definition, science, yet at the same time claim that creationists could publish in secular journals if they stick to science! They can't have it both ways. Claiming that they would cite scriptural arguments in a scientific paper is nonsense. As evidence of a sort, see this article which was included as a reference in RNA world hypothesis, yet was immediately removed by another editor as "religious propaganda", yet it made no reference to the Bible or religion in any way, let along "citing scriptural authority". No, the facts are that anything that supports the creation model is excluded on those ground, regardless of the merits of the article. Philip J. Rayment 11:46, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why this vanity page is allowed in Wikipedia...?

Why is this organisation relevant? Ejrrjs | What? 01:50, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As far as Creationist groups go, they're fairly prominent. I think it's good for people to able to quickly see what a group like this believes, I think it helps them evaluate them when they are used as a source for various claims. (I say that as someone who disagrees with them pretty strongly, but thinks their entry here should be as fair as possible nonetheless). --Fastfission 03:44, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your answer. I still do not see why AiG is SO relevant that its weird belief are scattered all thru the encyclopedia. IF there is some good explanation (the one with more members, the one with more money, etc.) it should be stated in the opening sentence, instead of explaining what they mean by "hermeneutical method". Ejrrjs | What? 01:06, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Aig is a prominent christian organization in the United States.I've never been to Australia, Britain, etc. so I am unaware how prominent it is in those countries. At least in the United States it's beliefs, while are not mainstream among scientists(small minority) are widely held by Americans. In my opinion that is why the artical is relevant here.Falphin 00:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think it is mostly prominent on the internet. I have no idea whether it is prominent in a larger scale though I haven't seen a lot of evidence of it (in comparison with some other places like the Discovery Institute and the Templeton Foundation, which show up in the mainstream media all of the time tied to big names). Anyway, I agree completely that the intro is not much of an intro than it is a small essay on methodology. I'll try to brush that up a bit, move things around. --Fastfission 02:48, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I thought I was reading an advertisement for AiG. I have removed the bits begging for money for the museum and references to ten staff with doctorates! I'll return in the next few weeks and try and make this article appear a bit more balanced. It needs a major section on the criticisms of AiG and how it operates. It's lack of scientific rigour and its willingness to publish scientists quotes out of context to support its anti-evolutionary point of view. --Maustrauser 04:50, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • The exact opposite is on the CARM page. While it doesn't have a criticism section either yet it keeps on getting vandalized as does Matt Slick article. I'm trying ot clean both of those up and then and the criticism sections. However on Aig, don't make the criticism section too long because that in itself is a POV. Falphin 13:49, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Also, there is no previous criticism section on an organisation I can find.Falphin 14:29, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Weikart, Black books

Edwin Black's work is sensationalist journalism -- he is not a historian in a scholarly sense. We can get far better references than him, I hope. Why are you insisting on this link to the Weikart page? It doesn't tell you very much about the book at all, and he is really not one of the big historians on Darwinism and the Nazis. I would much rather prefer that we give a good print reference rather than a "cheap link." I removed both books from the Eugenics page refs as well because 1. they were not used as references for the article (I know, I wrote it), 2. they are not very good references in compared to the ones already given. I don't understand why you like Weikart so much -- is it because he is a creationist and the creationists enjoy his work? I would find that to be a really silly reason to put him on a page like this -- if you want to show that this idea of history is not just something the creationists have cooked up, why not use a reference that has no connections to anybody who has an ideological reason to tear down Darwinism? As the sentence is currently written, Weikart is certainly not the best source on it, and I think using him just because creationists enjoy his work is a self-defeating tactic. --Fastfission 13:31, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Is Weikart a creationist? And if so, so what? I chose his work because he is a professor of European history and lived in Germany for 5 years, so it's fair to assume that he knows what he's talking about. Or are creationists automatically to be discounted even though they are well qualified in the area.
Black's book won a prize. Are there any errors in his book about the extent of eugenics in America or the major players? 220.244.224.10 14:37, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Living in Germany for five years doesn't make you qualified, it means you got a doctorate in German history. Weikart's connections to Creationist groups [4] [5] certainly makes his historical interpretations suspicious to me, and since none of the text is reflective of any specific opinions of his in particular (it is a very general narrative), I don't see why one should cite a potentially biased source when there are so many which do not have such obvious questions about bias on a topic like this. Almost any of the references on the Eugenics page will do just fine to prove the point and will not raise any eyebrows -- either mine or skeptical evolutionists. Let me also phrase it this way: if I were strongly suspicious of Creationists and didn't know my history, I'd find the fact that it was references with an active Creationist historian very suspicious. No need to create such suspicion, and there are scholars who are far more prominent and respected than Weikart who can be cited for the same thing (Proctor, Kevles, Paul, etc.).
As for Black.. again, he's not really that great a historian. He's a journalist who sells airport books. I haven't looked over that particular book too closely but his other work makes it quite clear that he's a guy whose entire game is to be sensationalistic, and in his other books (i.e. IBM and the Holocaust) he makes some pretty silly leaps of historical judgment and logic in order to over-implicate various groups he doesn't like in the Holocaust. He is not taken seriously by serious historians of eugenics, he is not considered a real researcher in the field. He writes very well and knows how to make things sound exciting and so he gets more popular press time. Again, there are far better people to cite for this who aren't known for sensationalism or their political biases. Why don't we just cite a well-respected scholar, if you want to cite somebody so bad? The Diane Paul article from the Cambridge Companion to Darwin cited in the Eugenics and Charles Darwin articles presents this same story in a very straightfoward and sober manner, pulls no punches, and is not going to raise any eyebrows as to its veracity or its biases. --Fastfission 04:49, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Strategies" and "Evolution and race"

I just finished editing the Strategies section only to notice the section about Evolution and race. Is there any reason these two sections haven't been merged before now? The strategies section is almost completely about racism. TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 20:06, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Their use of history as a strategy is different than just their belief in a certain version of it. At one point this difference was reflected in the entry but elaboration to both parts made them look fairly redundant at this point. Fastfission 02:30, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, looking back through the page's history, I didn't really see a time when the two points were different, but of course I didn't exactly do an exhaustive search. Anyways it seems to be redundant now. Not sure what to do about it, though. Probably should either merge it with the section below or remove some of the redundant parts from the strategies section to revert it back to whatever original meaning it was supposed to have. I'm also not sure how unique AiG is for using historical arguments against evolution, but maybe the reason it sounds so familiar is that other creationists mimic AiG's arguments. TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 18:22, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

A Letter to AIG

Hey Wiki's, I am on the mailing list for AIG, it is a battle scar from a pranking war. Nevertheless, I am always excited for their newsletter. A whiles back, i wrote to them, asking them about how they could possibly account for the Earth being 6,000 years old. With some wikipermission, I would like to post this letter on the AIG page. I'll post it under crticisms, if you don't like it then let me know.

Also, I have noticed that over the past few years, AIG has abandoned "Operation Refuting Compromise". I will post on this subject as well.

--Reid 20:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)--157.252.65.213 20:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Evidently, Dunc has deemed my contribution to be worthless.

Dunc, is it too much to ask why? I understand the letter format being incorrect, but why the section on the evolution of their creationist beliefs? I think you owe me an explanation.

Reid 22:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Possibly because publishing private emails is a breach of copyright? And because emails are not a credible source for Wikipedia? How do we know you haven't doctored them, for example? Whether Duncharris deemed your contribution as "worthless" is for him to say, but he was perfectly justified in deleting them because they violate Wiki standards.58.162.245.111 04:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Operation Refuting Compromise

left|thumb|220px|2003 left|thumb|220px|2004 right|thumb|220px|2005- This last comic is not condoning Intelligent Design, it is merely a nod in ID's direction. AIG clearly has differing beliefs from ID, but still acknowledges them as "Non-Atheists", and therefore more friendly. In a recently article, AIG states that they view themselves as the purest in a spectrum which degrades from their literal interpretation to various Theistic Evolutions, to ID, to Atheistic Evolution. ID may be viewed as more friendly, but it is still a compromise from truth. Every Newsletter from AIG used to come under the heading "Operation Refuting Compromise", which was a reiteration of how they "uphold the authority of the bible from the very first verse."

Originally, this Operation was not only attacking evolution, but also Intelligent Design, Gap Theory, Theistic Evolution, and other "apologetics" as stated above. Recently however, as ID gains in power, the newsletters have taken a kinder approach to intelligent design. AIG is even selling an intelligent design DVD. I intend to illustate this point below with the comics by Dan Lietha, which capture the essence of AIG like no other artist could. The comics base the comedy of their situations off of the presupposition of a literal interpretation of the Bible. It is in this way that Dan Lietha is the illustrative soul of AIG.

  • Above is the text and cartoons that Reid wants to place in the article. If the point is that AIG has softened towards I.D. then that can be said without a first person narrative. I suspect that is why it got deleted. Another issue is the copyright status of the Dan Lietha cartoons. I suspect they cannot not be part of the wikipedia content. David D. (Talk) 22:30, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The Dietha cartoons are not necessary and the commentary is not encyclopedic ("the illustrative soul of AIG" etc.). But I agree that if it is true about their newsletter and it is true about their stance on ID then it would be worth pointing out. But using cartoons to argue the point is definitely against WP:NOR -- it is interpretative/analytical work by the individual Wikipedian adding the content, which is not allowed. --Fastfission 02:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • There was little analytical work being done, the cartoons are clear indications of AIG's softening viewpoints on Intelligent Design. Especially the fact that they dropped the "operation refuting compromise" label. I agree about the narrative style, I should not have introduced that into the text, and I will revise accordingly. I know we are supposed to use sterile words, but Dan Lietha is the illustrative soul of AIG. To understand his cartoons is to understand the viewpoint of these scientifically inept christians. I apologize for the wording, but I thought it was a concise way of phrasing what I have just said. Reid 18:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
    • In addition, I did not want to be too cruel to these people, I do not believe in the villinizing of any group. To simply write them off as idiots does not solve the problem of their existence. Evolution will only continue to lose popular support if we do not listen to, and learn how to respectfully argue with people who have chosen to live in a fantasy world.
The whole premise is nonsense. Compare [Baptist school afraid of creation] and AiG’s views on the Intelligent Design Movement from a few years ago with ID theorist blunders on Bible and ID and President Bush—the deeper issues. If anything, the more recent articles are rebutting ID more than the earlier ones, so it's nonsense to talk about "softening" then speculating why this should be occurring. Wikipedia has no room for speculation on motives like that, so Duncharris was completely right to revert these changes.
Note also, the "Operating Refuting Compromise" was used for only one year. Note the January 2004 article Operation: Refuting Compromise—AiG has something really challenging in store for 2004!, where Ken Ham explicitly stated"
Our theme for this year will be ‘Operation: Refuting Compromise.’ (bold added)
And a March 2004 article, At last! A great tool to challenge your compromising pastor/Christian leader provides a likely reason for the name of this operation—that it was the year that the book Refuting Compromise by Jonathan Sarfati was published.58.162.245.111 04:08, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Right, the theme for the year of 2004 was refuting compromise. The current year is 2005, which is what prompted my comment of how the label had been dropped. Correct, They have mixed feelings towards ID. I was stating that they have softened. Their personal differences have not dissolved completely, but there is an affective change in how they treat Intelligent Designers. If you look at their book catalogue, they are selling ID books and movies. Their comics are also more gentle. They'll always seperate themselves from ID factually, but they do not need to sell or publish ID media. This is a nod in the direction of the far more popular creationist theory.

Reid 18:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

But what you appear not to have considered is the political spin they're putting on it. They're giving out different messages to different target audiences because that's what their target audience want to hear. Dunc|☺ 19:04, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Dunc, spin is not much of an issue in what I am considering. But yes, you are right about how they are sending out semi-conflicting viewpoints. Since they are recruiting people, their audiences need to be seduced into believing that their views are not so different. Intelligent design is a fantastic audience, as they are a pseudoscientific flock, ripe for assimilation. Perhaps I should rephrase my additions to speak about their love/hate relationship with ID. Reid 03:28, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Controversy over Interview with Richard Dawkins

Is this really pertinent to AiG? What I mean is, if someone types in "Answers in Genesis" in the search box, is this Richard Dawkins section really the sort of thing that they're likely to find useful? I can see maybe having half a paragraph or a couple of links on the Richard Dawkins page over this, but as it stands this section looks like it's merely going to become a contentious spot in this article. Is anyone else for removing it or reducing it down to a sentence or two in another section? TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 00:10, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi- the same question of relevancy was put on the Dawkins page! AiG is a massively controversial organization with very controversial views. Why should the Wikipedia page not reflect this? This all started because the AiG link with the video was on the Dawkins page and we were discusssing the controversy surrounding that. I suggested moving the link to the AiG page- with an accompanying discussion of its controversy. I think the fact that AiG has quite heavily promoted this video on their own web pages makes a strong case for Wikipedia covering this. Finally, I hope that we can come up with text that satisfies everyone. I checked out the 'pro-creationist' response to my initial text and found to my surprise that at least some of it seems documented by 3rd party sources- i.e. the Morton guy who listened to the entire interview and supports the AiG stance. I think I have adequately documented this without offending either party. I know which side of the creationist debate I support- but I am trying to give a factual representation of the controversy. Christianjb 00:58, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't so much have a problem with the AiG side of the story or npov or sources, I just think this is a bit silly to devote so much space to. But I've gotten used to the fact that my ideas of relevance differ from everyone else's, so I'll leave it be. :) TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 21:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

BTW, can someone help with the formatting error I seem to be having with this text at the moment. Thanks, Christianjb 00:58, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh and I see that someone's just removed the mailing list ref. I put up. I think the given reason is fair enough, that it doesn't meet the encyclopeadia standard- however, I'd like to see this info included if someone can find a better reference- preferably a published article. Christianjb 01:02, 12 November 2005 (UTC)


Blatant attempt by anonymous pro-creationist editor to silence facts

From the revision history:

58.162.246.25 (Talk) (removing boring repetition about "peer review", since the establishment journals refuse to publish creationist views. It is perfectly relevant that a critical site was founded by a bigoted atheist.)

Well, it's a fact that many (all?) of AiG's theories and interpretations have not been accepted into the peer review mainstream literature. I added statements to this effect at points in the article where creationist theories are put forward. This is an encyclopaedia people! It's not enough to list the scientific musings of AiG without mentioning that they are simply not accepted by ANY of the mainstream journals.

It gets boring to harp on about this, when you know perfectly well that they refuse to publish work critical of materialistic evolution.58.162.252.67 17:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I also see that the anonymous reviewer has reinstated the sentence:

No Answers in Genesis website (atheist-founded site explicitly critical of AiG)

This is just insulting!

What a sensitive soul you are. This is a true statement, and has everything to do with his rejection of a Creator.58.162.252.67 17:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 As I said when I took this sentence out- it is simply not appropriate to mention the religious affiliation of the author of a text you disagree with, unless that person is seen to be pushing his/her religious position.  When I cite papers in scientific journals, I don't feel the need to write- Gay Jew Fred Smith has an alternative treatment of dipole-dipole interactions.  Why?  Because it has NOTHING to do with the paper, and it's none of my business.  As is established (and I sourced this), the Australian Skeptics society accepts people of all orientations and doesn't discriminate or even care what the religious orientation of their members is.

If you feel that a Skeptic's religious orientation is important, then please state your case in a reasoned argument.

Duh, since Dawkins claimed that Darwin made it "possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist", obviously atheists NEED evolution as their crutch.58.162.252.67 17:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
This assumes that all skeptics are atheists. And this is wrong. David D. (Talk) 20:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I assure you that there are numerous scientists and skeptics who are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus as well as atheists who don't subscribe to AiG's particular brand of theology. Do we need to affix a religious label to all of these?

I understand that some supporters of AiG believe that people who agree with ALL relevant papers in ALL mainstream scientific journals in the essential veracity of evolution are doing so to promote their atheist worldview. Good for them!, but this doesn't belong in an encyclopaedia.

Also, if the editor believes that the No Answers in Genesis website is bigoted, then- that is his/her opinion, which also doesn't belong in an encyclopaedic article. I have my opinions about anyone who supports AiG, but I don't air them on Wikipedia pages! Christianjb 08:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Just to be fair- I said above that many Christians, Jews etc don't subscribe to AiG's particular brand of theology.

What would you care?58.162.252.67 17:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I should have said that they don't subscribe to their particular brand of scientific speculation. AiG is welcome to whatever theology they want- but when they make pronouncements on science, it is completely fair that the accuracy (or rather complete inaccuracy) of their science should be mentioned in a fact-based encyclopedia article. Christianjb 09:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Then prove it, rather than boring us all by argumentum ad populum.

I see that the edit I'm referring to was just reverted (good!). Please let's not get into an iterative loop here- if contributors to this page disagree with my statements above- then let's have a reasoned argument on the talk page. Christianjb 12:02, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

This section contains quotes that are unsigned. Please sign your posts to this page. If this goes on much longer I will request that all unsigned posts are immediately deleted. Thanks. Christianjb 13:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

List of Purported problems section

Well, I've done a few edits to this section- but it strikes me that the whole section may be unnecessary. I'm sure that there are Wikipedia pages that deal with all of this information already- including the Creation-evolution_controversy page. It may be better to just link to pages already in existance. As I tried to write- a young Earth model flies in the face of all of modern day science; so there's no way that we can list all the problems in just a short section. Maybe it should be kept if AiG's position is particularly unique amongst YEC's, but I don't know enough about their theology and claims to judge.

Psalm 104:8 and other dodgy quotes

I deleted the following:

Psalm 104:8 says that the mountains rose and valleys sank, and the water flowed down. This would have made the flood waters run into the current ocean basins.

According to [6], the actual quote is:

they [the waters] flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them.

Uh, isn't this 'evidence' a complete fabrication? Christianjb 06:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

By the way, this text was put in by anonymous editor 203.222.55.36 on Nov. 4. Perhaps 203.222.56.36 can enlighten us as to why this quote can be interpreted as the mountains rising and the valleys sinking? Christianjb 06:38, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Read the NASB!! It's in the Answers Book. This is going back in.58.162.252.67 17:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I also removed this unsourced quote purportedly from AiG

AiG points out that there are likewise no fossils of coelacanths and whales together, yet we know that both live together in the sea.

As I said- this quote is not sourced and I haven't been able to track it down on AiG using google (searching 'Answers in Genesis', 'whales', 'coelecanth'. AiG does mention coelecanths on several pages- but not in this context. Could it be that this quote is uh... fabricated? Prove me wrong. Christianjb 07:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

What nonsense. I heard this from an AiG speaker. It is a logical strengthening of the argument in Ken Ham's article Missing? or misinterpreted?:
No fossils of coelacanths have ever been found in the same layers as human fossils, but they have been found in the same layers as dinosaur fossils—yet we know coelacanths and humans do live together, because they do so in the present world.
So this is going back in.58.162.252.67 17:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


I also removed:

based on (Gen. 1:27) and (Gen. 2:24), which Jesus cited in (Mat. 19:3–6) and (Mar 10:5–9).[7]

From the paragraph

AiG defends marriage as one man and one woman for life, based on (Gen. 1:27) and (Gen. 2:24), which Jesus cited in (Mat. 19:3–6) and (Mar 10:5–9).[17] Therefore AiG rejects homosexual behavior [18] and polygamy[19], while AiG sees nothing wrong with so-called Interracial marriage.[20]

I went through the AiG page, which was quoted [8]. There's no mention of (Gen:1.27) or Gen(2:24), or any part of Mark.

What nonsense. They are direct quotes. Compare them yourself!! Better still, stay out of areas in which you are so woefully incompetent. 58.162.252.67 17:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Matthew is mentioned- but not in the context of marriage.

Are you serious? More likely, trying to make trouble. Even their cartoons point this out, as do many of their books (e.g. The Lie: Evolution and Refuting Compromise. Here is one page:
The doctrine of marriage is dependent upon the literal history in Genesis 1-11. When Jesus was asked about divorce (which obviously concerns marriage) in Matthew 19, He answered by quoting directly from Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2. (By the way, Genesis 1 and 2 are not two different accounts of Creation: Genesis 1 is an overview of the six days of Creation in chronological order, and Genesis 2 is a detailed account of the sixth day of Creation.)
So this is going back too.
The comment above was unsigned. Please have respect for the writers on this page and for Wikipedia by remembering to sign your comments. It makes it very difficult to discern who said what when people don't sign their comments. If this abuse and potential vandalism of the talk page continues I will start (and encourage others) to just remove unsigned text on sight. Thanks Christianjb 13:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Statement of position from one editor

Some of you will have noticed that I've made quite a few edits in the last few weeks. The majority of these edits are of a skeptical bent. Am I expressing a POV? That's a tough question, and maybe not for me to decide. I would however like to point out that I try to outline places where AiG disagrees with majority opinion in mainstream science, a position which is encouraged by Wikipedia style guides. Finally, I am also trying to refrain from criticizing the theology of AiG, about which I am not qualified to comment and have little opinion on. It's only the science of AiG that I am experienced enough to write about. It may be possible to criticize AiG from a theological perspective, i.e. pointing out disagreements with mainstream Christianity (whatever that is), or with mainstream interpretations of scripture, but that is not my goal. I tend to take the view that it is reasonable for religious oriented pages on Wikipedia to fully and fairly explain the tenets of its believers without contradiction from competing religious views. Let me know your thoughts Christianjb 07:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, let me modify the above. I do have a problem with AiG's theology when it comes to homosexuals. Advocating the death penalty

No they don't.220.245.180.133 03:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

... and wanting to re-label pedophile priests as gay priests (see article)

Only those who molest young men, as is amply clear from the article and previous discussion.220.245.180.133 03:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

... is to my mind not only repugnant, but indicative of genocidal tendencies. I'll try not to let this bias interfere with my edits. Christianjb 12:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, right. You are a well-balanced editor—chips on both shoulders. 220.245.180.133 03:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want to restate your comments in a more sensible manner then I will respond fully. It would also help if you signed in so that I know who I'm talking to. Thanks Christianjb 10:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Please Help

All of the information below is correct (and sourced) to my knowledge. I have an uneasy feeling there may be legal ramifications to some of the following- and I'd like to ask around before placing this back on the article page. I'll see what "official" Wikipedia guidelines say, and I'd like very much to hear your comments. (Also, please read the Terms of Use of the charitynavigator page: [9]) thanks, Christianjb 08:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

AiG is a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code [10]. According to the charitynavigator website [11] AiG had a US $9,016,228 total revenue in FYE 2003, with president Ken Ham recieving a compensation of US$170,217. The website of WCPO TV has reported that in 2003, AiG "did not meet all of the [Better Business] Bureau's accountability standards" (emphasis in original) [12] Bill Wise, of AiG answered that this was due to a "miscommunication, understanding regarding document submittals back in August of 2002." (ibid [13])

OK, well I placed this text on the assistance page of the Wikipedia Village pump. I'm also going to email charitynavigator to see if they will let me post this information. Sorry if I seem paranoid here! I always get nervous when I see those dollar signs. Christianjb 08:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

UPDATE. (Maybe no-one's concerned- I've received a big silence on this haha, but anyway) I emailed charitynavigator and got a nice response this morning telling me I was free to quote those figures from their site. Yeah, I do seem paranoid, but you should see their legal page, not for the faint of heart. I'm reinstating the text.Christianjb 14:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Edits by 58.162.252.67

Continuing from my discussion on the Sarfati page... I do not like anonymous editors making controversial edits to controversial pages. I would much prefer to have a reasoned debate. I am watching all edits very closely right now. I will list any objections on this talk page (within a few hours) and I will expect that 58.162.252.67 will be able to defend his/her edits. Christianjb 17:35, 2 December 2005 (UTC) I'm busy now, but I urge all interested parties to take a good look at the edit: 17:27, 2 December 2005 58.162.252.67, which you can find on the history page. Christianjb 17:38, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


Due to the insulting nature of the above comments by 58.162.252.67 in Blatant attempt by anonymous pro-creationist editor to silence facts section above, which attack me personally, I move that:

We regard these edits as vandalism and freeze edits on this page for the time being.

Please read Wikipedia:No personal attacks.

I personally feel that 58.162.252.67 has gone beyond the pale here. I would like others to comment as soon as possible. Thanks Christianjb 17:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to wait it out for a few hours or even a day. I will let 58.162.252.67 make all the edits he/she wants. I'm then going to decide what action should be taken, based on others' comments and Wikipedia guidelines. I realise that reverting edits myself will only end up in an edit-war- so I'm going to need others help here. I will probably seek the help of an administrator to sort this out. Can I remind everyone (including myself) to stay calm. All of the previous edits are saved, and nothing is lost. Christianjb 18:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Marriage and homosexuality is it inflammatory?

AiG defends marriage as one man and one woman for life, based on (Gen. 1:27) and (Gen. 2:24), which Jesus cited in (Mat. 19:3–6) and (Mar 10:5–9).[14] [15] AiG rejects homosexual behavior [16] and polygamy[17], while AiG sees nothing wrong with so-called Interracial marriage [18].

AiG views homosexuals as sinners who should be punished. They don't explicitly outline which punishment they feel is appropriate except to link to (Lev. 20:13) which calls for the death penalty for homosexuals [19]. They have also called for pedophile Catholic priests to be relabeled as "gay priests".

" The way they [media] describe certain wayward Catholic priests (a tiny minority) as ‘pedophile priests’. However, they would be far better described as ‘gay priests’, since their usual targets were adolescent boys rather than little girls." Jonathan Sarfati Feb 2005 [20].

AiG has referred to homosexuals who strongly disagree with such attitudes as "homonazis".

"Homosexuals are now a politically protected victim group, about which it is verboten to say anything negative. And certain homonazis want Christians punished if they quote from the Bible against homosexual behavior. Indeed, 63-year-old Pastor Åke Green was jailed in Sweden for just that, because they have such a sodomofascist law restricting Christian freedom." Jonathan Sarfati Feb 2005 [21].

This neologism is particularly offensive to most homosexuals given that Nazis killed tens of thousands of homosexuals during the Holocaust, who they labelled as parasitic subhumans, or untermensch.

As pointed out, this neologism referred to those who jailed Christian dissenters from the homosexual party line, a fascistic thing to do. Evidently CJB supports this persecution of dissenters. And he ignores the strong homosexual element in the Nazi rise to power, e.g. Ernst Röhm.58.162.252.67 14:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Above is a version of the text with the quotes displayed for clarity. I agree that these quotes are inflammatory. So why would AIG endorse such quotes on their web site? NPOV does not mean ignoring the less than savory parts of a persons or organisations character. NPOV means good and bad on the table for all to see.

If the anon editor, user:58.162.252.67, has a problem with these quotes then s/he is showing a distinct bias to showing the squeeky clean side of AiG. That is POV. Some people will want to know what AiG really think. It is wikipedias job to cut through the AiG PR and present the real AiG. If the quotes above were my opinions i would agree they should be cut. BUT they are not my opinion they are cut and paste from the AiG web site! David D. (Talk) 19:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

From NPOV guidelines: " the task is to represent the majority (scientific) view as the majority view and the minority (sometimes pseudoscientific) view as the minority view; and, moreover, to explain how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories."

from the Wiki NPOV tutorial [22]I quote

"Some Wikipedians, in the name of neutrality, try to avoid making any statements that other people find offensive or objectionable, even if objectively true. This is not the intent of striving for neutrality. Many groups would prefer that certain facts be stated euphemistically, or only in their own terminology, or suppressed outright; such desires need not be deferred to. On the other hand, these terms should be presented, explained and examples given, perhaps with views of other groups of why the term is used as well as the group itself."

Christianjb 19:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Now requesting advocacy.

I have placed a notice on Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance requesting an advocate. I'll let you know here when I get any news. As before, let's all keep a cool head and do things the proper way. If anyone has any comments then let me know either here or on my talk page. Christianjb 00:21, 3 December 2005 (UTC) Well, it looks like we may be in for a long wait (several weeks?) for advocacy to arrive. If anyone has any suggestions, let's hear them. (Things are awfully quiet around here.) In the meantime, I'm going to relax and take it easy.Christianjb 01:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Reinstating Science section

As a little experiment I'm going to reinstate the section:

"Is Answers in Genesis a Scientific organization?" When anonymous editor 58.162.252.67 removed this section, his/her comment in the edit summary was simply

(This entire section was removed with the comment "So many mistakes. Naive falsificationism. Creationists HAVE made discoveries. They would not invoke miracles in OPERATIONAL science.")

And this was proven in many articles on their site.58.162.252.67 14:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • First of all, I find this comment to be personally offensive. I do not like being accused of Naive falsfication.
Then stop writing like a Naive Falsificationist!
  • Secondly, there's an obvious way that 58.162.252.67 can improve this section. Just make a list of scientific discoveries that AiG have made (with sources). That should make everyone happy.
Already made on site, e.g. Raymond Damadian and MRI. And let's not forget the foundation of modern science by creationists, including some contemporaries of Darwin such as James Joule, Lord Kelvin and James Clerk Maxwell.58.162.252.67 14:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
How many scientists of that era were not creationists? More importantly, would they have been creationists today with all the new scientific data sets that are available? We'll never know, but it is clear that less than 0.5% of current scientists who work in fields relevant to evolution are proponents of creationism (geologists, biologist). It is pointless citing ancient history in this debate and it is a red herring. It should also be pointed out that scientists such as Jonathan Wells (Ph.D. in developmental biology from Berkeley) were hard line creationists before they did their biological studies. It is likely that they persued these degrees with a closed mind and possibly a political agenda.
Of course, antitheists like Dawkins are the epitome of objectivity, aren't they. It's hardly an accident that the leading evolutionary propagandists are atheists.[23]220.245.180.133 03:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
We all have our bad apples, right?  ;-) David D. (Talk) 04:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
But CJB was the one who brought him up in the first place ;) 220.245.180.133 04:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
There is still the other 99.5%. Lets throw out the atheists, that would leave about 50% (I have no idea what the real number is, I'm just guessing about half). Lets assume that about 35% of the scientists are Christian. That would leave 17% of scientists who agree with AiG's religious views (in practice) but disagree with their philosophy. That a lot of knowledgeable people who disagree with AiG's interpretation of the scientific data. David D. (Talk) 04:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Some biologists who are legitimately creationists, in the sense that I do not think they have a political agenda. Three come to mind with Michael Behe of Darwin's Black Box fame being the most prominent. Second is Todd Wood who has published articles on evolution and is not speaking from ignorance. The poster boy biologist, who became a creationist AFTER his seminal contributions to science, should be Dr. John Sanford. He developed the gene gun at Dupont. This was instrumental in allowing plant geneticists to transform many of the current crop plants. Strangely neither of the last two scientists get as much air time as people like Behe and Wells. Nevertheless these scientist are few and far between. It should also be noted that despite the fact that Behe is a proponent of ID he has no problem with evolution and would disagree with most of the AiG tenets. In fact this is a major issue within the creationist movement since there seems to be mulitple groups ALL with different variations what ID and creationism actually represent. This could explain the shambles (witnesses caught in perjury as their stories changed) of the recent defense for ID in the so called Dover Panda Trial in Pennsylvania. David D. (Talk) 16:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Of course, neither creationists nor ID theorists have any doubt that they are different.[24] If any people are perjuring themselves, it is those insist that they are practically the same. Thanx for Sanford ref though. 220.245.180.133 03:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm glad you enjoyed the Sanford tidbit, I'm surprised you had not heard of him before, although it would not surprise me if he does not want to get dragged into the politics. The article you cite was also intersting. My major problem with their position is summed up in this sentence "The major focus of their attacks is not evolution as such, but ‘chance’ evolution, i.e., the naturalistic philosophy (there is no supernatural; matter is all there is) behind it.". The word chance is a misrepresentation of what happens. The Dawkins quote that is doing the revert war merry-go-around at present addresses this with respect to evolution. However, the laws of chemistry likewise refute that there is chance in chemical reactions. Some are more likely than others, in fact, some are certain. Nothing is completely random. That is true of the universe too. Forces such as gravity make motion non random.
The chance arguments are all based on retrospective probability. People do win loterries despite the huge odds against such an occurance. What is the probability that I would be typing this message to you here, at this specific location, 40 years after my bith on a different continent? I'm guessing the odds are huge but here I am. What does chance and probability mean in retrospect? Nothing. In retrospect the chance we exist is 1. The chance I am here is 1. Granted that probability tells me nothing about how I got here, but calculating how unlikly it is for me to be here is a pretty moot point. That is why such an argument is irrelevent to the debate. David D. (Talk) 04:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Christianjb BTW, I have a PhD in Physics and I'm a working scientist who currently published in mainstream scientific journals. People may strongly disagree with this section- but I have tried to make it reflect the opinion of mainstream scientists. Maybe some people discount the opinion of mainstream scientists. All well and good, but let's at least hear what this opinion is. Christianjb

And if I were a gambler, I would bet heaps that your papers have nothing to do with evolution whatever.58.162.252.67 14:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Please reread No personal attacks Thanks. I will not respond to statements that I regard as insulting. If you want to reword that question in a more sensible manner I will do my best to give a full answer. Christianjb 03:59, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I presume the questioner meant that evolution was not likely to be relevant to your research. Indeed, Dr Marc Kirscher, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School states:
In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all. (Boston Globe, 23 October 2005)
So how much less relevant would it be to your physics research?220.245.180.133 04:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
This section is nigh impossible to read when comments are interspersed. Please append your comments to the bottom of each section- which I believe is normal Wikipedia practice. For instance- is the comment immediately above this one directed at me? I have no idea. Christianjb 04:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I looked through again and it does appear to be for me. (Forgive me, but as I said, this page is a mess!) Let me answer. Firstly, I am a physicist and am certainly not an expert in biology. I'm doing the best I can with my limited knowledge to present the mainstream opinion of scientists as documented by mainstream scientific organizations. In this I have some experience. My PhD indicates that I have at least some understanding of the scientific process (especially since I currently publish in mainstream journals). I am not saying my opinion is written in stone or is automatically better than anyone elses. Also, I am well aware that AiG employs several PhD's, who would disagree with my every word. However, I would claim that my opinions better represent mainstream scientific opinion. If you doubt this then please check out the ACLU list of scientific organizations' opinions on creationism ID (which I included on the AiG page.) I'm not even claiming that AiG are wrong about their theology or science- but I strongly claim that they are out of the mainstream, and I have sourced many pages in support of this. Thanks. Let me know if you have any more questions.Christianjb 04:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I was in error in my remarks above about the formatting of talk pages. New comments do not have to be appended to the bottom of the section- only to the bottom of the 'thread' within the section. Nevertheless, the use of interspersing comments (that is breaking up others text with your comments) is highly frowned upon and shows disrespect to other users. Christianjb 10:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Reinstating spontaneous generation text

I have reinstated the following text. It is sourced with several links to AiG pages. I have left the text by 58.162.252.67 alone, though I am still VERY unhappy with labelling a professional (and quite eminent) scientist an atheist in this context, which I find to be insulting. Dawkins is a strident atheist- but this is actually quite irrelevant to his scientific statements in this context. Can I remind people how insulting it would be to label a scientist as "however, Jewish astronomer Dr Jones has argued for a different galactic formation model"?

It would be, if it was relevant, e.g. if he was using Kabbalistic theory. It seems that CJB has no problem dismissing AiG's scientific arguments simply because AiG believe the Bible. Similarly, Dawkins often uses evolution as a justification for his atheistic faith, as does John Stear. So it is perfectly relevant to point out that these specific individuals are strident atheists.220.245.180.133 03:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

If anyone disagrees with this reinsertion, I beg of you to have a debate here on the talk page. That's what it's for. I will however not be responding to personal insults, of the type I have experienced above.

  • I think this has already been addressed by user 58.162.252.67 in reply to a similar question that you posed above.
You asked:
"If you feel that a Skeptic's religious orientation is important, then please state your case in a reasoned argument."
user 58.162.252.67 responded
"Duh, since Dawkins claimed that Darwin made it "possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist", obviously atheists NEED evolution as their crutch."17:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
This argument is obviously flawed since it assumes that all skeptics are atheists. For similar reason the above statement "Dawkins is a strident atheist" is flawed too since it is aimed to label evolutionary biologists as atheists. While many ARE atheists, it is irrelevant to the evolution/creationist debate because so many ARE religious. Such prefixes are proof that 58.162.252.67's contributions are tinged with POV since s/he is trying to discredit the argument with ad hominem-like context. I recommend it is deleted outright. Evolution is not an atheist conspiracy, even if supporters of AiG would like to think of it that way. David D. (Talk) 23:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
It's hard to respond to 58.162.252.67's argument, since it is so obviously an opinion, which is unsourced. I have strongly argued that it is offensive to label a scientist's religion in a context unconnected to religion. Dawkins is a difficult case because he has published so many articles discussing atheism and science that I can see that it could actually be pertinent to the debate to mention somewhere his strong atheistic position. As it stands though, I agree that this text should be deleted. I'll do it if you don't. Thanks for the input. Christianjb 23:29, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


(Reinserted text) Similarly, AiG discusses the overwhelming improbability of the spontaneous formation of one complete bacterium of Escherichia coli [25]. Again, there are no modern scientists publishing in mainstream journals who claim that bacteria spontaneously emerge. The idea of spontaneous genesis of bacteria is a pre-scientific idea, which was all but abandoned after the mainstream acceptance of evolution in the scientific community. This goes back to at least as far as 1768, when Lazzaro Spallanzani proved that microbes came from the air (as opposed to spontaneously generating). In this regard, it is remarkable (in the neutral sense of the word) that one of AiG's sections criticizing evolution is even headed Spontaneous Generation?

In a discussion on probability, AiG further discuss [26] the ability for mere chance to create information rich structures. Evolutionists however do not consider that the evolutionary mechanism works through chance (except in the trivial sense that everything has a probability of occuring between 0 and 1). The prominent evolution scientist, professor Richard Dawkins has said in response to similar views:

This is a spectacular misunderstanding. If it was random, then of course it couldn't possibly have given rise to the fantastically complicated and elegant forms that we see. Natural selection is the important force that drives evolution. Natural selection is about as non-random a force as you could possibly imagine. It can't work unless there is some sort of variation upon which to work. And the source of variation is mutation. Mutation is random only in the sense that it is not directed specifically toward improvement. It is natural selection that directs evolution toward improvement. Mutation is random in that it's not directed toward improvement. The idea that evolution itself is a random process is a most extraordinary travesty. I wonder if it's deliberately put about maliciously or whether these people honestly believe such a preposterous absurdity. Of course evolution isn't random. It is driven by natural selection, which is a highly non-random force. [27]

AiG disagrees with evolution, but they have a very controversial interpretation of what evolution is. Their characterization of evolution is not one that is recognized by evolutionary scientists, or mainstream scientific journals and organizations.Christianjb

Once again, CJB has cited natural selection, which as pointed out is irrelevant to FIRST life. And he continues to insinuate that creationists have never heard of Dawkins' cumulative selection.58.162.252.67 14:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


Of course creationists have heard of cumulative selection. However, their representation is different from that of mainstream scientists. Maybe AiG have a better understanding of cumulative selection than the vast majority of professional biologists- however don't claim that their intepretation is mainstream. It's not. The Dawkins quote nicely illustrates that. I know many people dislike Dawkins- that's fine- but he is an eminent scientist and does reflect mainstream scientific opinion in evolution. I know he has made controversial statements. If you like- you can point that out in the article- e.g. Dawkins is regarded by many as controversial.. etc. I am not trying to convert you or claim that mainstream science is better than creationism (whatever my personal opinions may be). I am trying to write a great article. Christianjb 05:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Definitions

It is inexcusable to delete AiG's charge of equivocation from a section on definitions. Also, it is perfectly appropriate to show that Dobzhansky agrees that natural selection should not be used to explain first life. It seems that some editors fail to understand this, by harping on as if Dawkins' natural selection arguments undermine AiG's probability calculations of the origin of the first living organism.58.162.245.148 03:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Reinserting scientific literature sentences

I have reinserted the following sentences:

  • In the mainstream scientific literature, it has never been disputed that humans and dinosaurs were not contemporaneuous.
  • The idea that a worldwide flood actually happened has no support in peer-reviewed publications in the mainstream scientific literature.
  • Their models have not been subjected to standard peer-reviewed publication in mainstream literature and are not accepted by the vast majority of professional astronomers.
  • This view does not have any support from the vast majority of astronomers and physicists and there do not appear to be any papers in peer-reviewed academic journals that support this statement.

If anyone believes that those three sentences are factually inaccurate then please provide sourced counter-examples. Christianjb

It is irrelevant. Origin of Species was not peer reviewed either. And there are many instances of censorship of pro-creation articles and even letters and rights of reply.[28],[29] As Charles Colson pointed out, referring to an intelligent design paper that slipped through the censorship blockade, after which the journal editor was savagely attacked:
The scientists who complained about Meyer’s article need to learn that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t, on the one hand, maintain that a scientific movement must publish a peer-reviewed article in order to be considered legitimate, and then turn around and claim that it wasn’t legitimate for a journal to publish any peer-reviewed article from that movement. If this is the kind of argument our Ph.D.s are coming up with, I think we’d better start requiring that all science majors take a few courses in logic.[30]

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.162.252.67 (talk • contribs) December 6, 2005.

This argument is nonsense. A journal should withdraw an article that was illegitimately published. Retractions happen. Dishonesty is overturned once discovered. Guettarda 15:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
There is not the slightest proof of dishonesty. And you miss Colson's point. If anyone is dishonest, it is those who declare that design theory is not science because their work is not published in scientific journals, then vociferously prevent these journals publishing design theory papers.220.245.180.133 03:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I thought the whole point was that the editor did NOT send it out for peer review but just accepted it as given. Is this normal for a peer reviewed journal? Even invited reviews are normally sent for peer review. Why did the editor choose not to send it for peer review? That would seem, if not dishonest, at least sneeky. However, this gets us into an argument that is really a distraction from the question in hand.
I agree with Colson, there is actually no reason at all why science should worry about these articles slipping through the peer review process. There are plenty of really bad articles that have been published in excellent journals despite negative peer review. In all cases this did not legitimaise the results presented and, in fact, left the authors open to even more critiscism than if they had not published. I can think of three good examples of this; Jacques Benveniste on water memory (Published in Nature), the study by Arpad_Pusztai that showed that rats got ill from eating GMO potatoes (Published in Lancet) and the transgenes that escaped into wild maize in Mexico by Quist D and Chapela IH (Published in Nature). In all cases the results were determined to be scare mongering or poorly controlled and unrepeatable. That is the beauty of science, just because a paper is published does not make the conclusions true. A paper is only the start, if the data is not repeatable it will be discarded and not be considered further. The fact that ID has so few publications is obviously striking in itself, but the few publications they do have does not give ID any more legitimacy. The papers need to have substance. As yet no ID article has gone beyond pointing holes in the theory of evolution and making claims that are indistinguishable from assertions. This kind of science will sink to the bottom of the pile as fast as a lead brick.
So why do scientist fear the publication of ID review articles? i think the point that Colson is missing is that most scientist see the ID publication game for what it really is. Every publication will probably be used to boost a publicity campaign verging on a propganda blitz, unheard of in the normal scientific process. Science will become subject to consensus and popularity votes by people who do not understand the arguments, let alone the process. Science has never worked this way and scientist are afraid they do not have the tools to comabt such tactics. Certainly they do not have the money to comabat an AiG, ICR and Discovery Institute three pronged attack. This may sound melodramatic but that's what scientist fear and I think they have every right to expect ID articles to survive the scientific peer review without sneeking in the back door. David D. (Talk) 03:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Come off it! The point Colson was making is that is intellectually dishonest to do both the following: (A) Demand that creationists must publish in journals to be legitimate (B) Demand that journals not publish creationist papers.58.162.245.148 14:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Looks at the revert-happy atheist Duncharris as a case in point! He can't stand to see even reasonable dissent from the evolutionary paradigm.58.162.245.148 14:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
No scientific journal has ever demanded that creationist papers do not get published. If creationist scientists had valid arguments there is no doubt they would be published. Firstly, how often are creationist research papers submitted to scientific journals? I suppose they don't submit due to the scientific conspiracy, right? Or is it that they spend more time with publicity and politics than actually doing research? Secondly, if all these creationist authors have been rejected did you consider it could be because the papers are scientifically flawed? Most science papers get rejected at some point, there is no conspiracy. Usually they get published after the reviewers concerns have been addressed. I expect the creationist authors were unable to address the concerns. Certainly the arguments on creationist web sites such as the critiques of radioactive dating and the flood geology papers are flawed arguments. No one will get published if they make invalid conclusions, ignore most of the data (especially the inconvenient data that does not fit their model) or use poorly designed controls. This is true for all papers not just those with written by creationist authors.
So what did Colson actually say? The quote above was "You can’t, on the one hand, maintain that a scientific movement must publish a peer-reviewed article in order to be considered legitimate, and then turn around and claim that it wasn’t legitimate for a journal to publish any peer-reviewed article from that movement. " The assumption here is that the scientist were complaining about a paper that undee went legitimate scientific peer review. Was it? I just did a bit of research on this topic. Firstly the science in Meyer's review has been descirbed in the following way:
"Given R. v. Sternberg’s creationist leanings, it seems plausible to surmise that the paper received some editorial shepherding through the peer review process. Given the abysmal quality of the science surrounding both information theory and the Cambrian explosion, it seems unlikely that it received review by experts in those fields. One wonders if the paper saw peer review at all." Quoted from a review by Alan Gishlick, Nick Matzke, and Wesley R. Elsberry [31].
That's not a good start. So then I looked up some moreon Sternberg and this is what he had to say:
"Pressured to reveal peer reviewers and to engage in improper peer review. I was repeatedly pressured to reveal the names of the peer-reviewers of the Meyer article, contrary to professional ethics. I was also told repeatedly that I should have found peer reviewers who would reject the article out-of-hand, in direct violation of professional ethics which require editors to find peer reviewers who are not prejudiced or hostile to a particular author or his/her ideas." Quoted from Sternberg's web site
So it is clear that he did not want to select reviewers who would "reject the article out-of-hand" and instead sent it to reviewers that he considered to be neutral. This sounds like he could have the potential for bias. I do not know what to make of his claim that he was told to find "reviewers who would reject the article out-of-hand". Is that what he was told to do, or is that his opinion of what the recommended reviewers would do? Obviously we do not know who actually reviewed the paper but one would have hoped the editor would send it to other scientists who work on the Cambrian explosion or information theory. I wonder if he did.....or not?
"The Meyer paper underwent a standard peer review process by three qualified scientists, all of whom are evolutionary and molecular biologists teaching at well-known institutions. The reviewers provided substantial criticism and feedback to Dr. Meyer, who then made significant changes to the paper in response. Subsequently, after the controversy arose, Dr. Roy McDiarmid, President of the Council of the BSW, reviewed the peer-review file and concluded that all was in order. As Dr. McDiarmid informed me in an email message on August 25th, 2004, "Finally, I got the [peer] reviews and agree that they are in support of your decision [to publish the article]."" Quoted from Sternberg's web site
So it does sound like there was a legitimate peer review although the selection of the reviewers does sound to be overly sympathetic to the author. Given the post publication criticism of the science it does sound like the reviewers he chose were sympathetic to letting bad scientific arguments slip thorugh the net. Does this pass the legitimate scientific peer review test as stated by Colson? I guess we'll never know, but the paper is now out and will stand or fall on its own merit. The critques so far suggest its arguments are flawed. David D. (Talk) 04:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
To be honest I have no idea what DavidD means about scientists expecting ID articles could withstand peer review. Am I reading that correctly? It's not because scientists are scared of AiG- surely. There are scientists in corporations far bigger than AiG who publish regularly. Scientific journals are not scared of creationists! They thrive on academic dispute and challenging controversial articles. The real problem is simply that creationist articles simply don't pass the scientific standards- which unfortunately for creationists -involves seeking naturalistic explanations. Yes- I know- creationists see this as unfairly excluding them a priori- and that's part of the reason why they have to publish in their own in-house journals. But you can only take these conspiracy theories so far. If TJ finds a cure for cancer tomorrow then I doubt that governments would stand in their way whilst objecting to the non-naturalism of their premises. It's just an unfortunate fact that creationists have to deal with - their research journals (whilst no doubt interesting to them and their readers) just doesn't produce things like breakthroughs in semiconductor technology- gene splicing - immunology - better engine design etc etc. If a day comes when TJ starts producing advances in these subjects I'll be the first to subscribe. Christianjb 10:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
This is a silly argument. All these are discoveries in operational science, which although founded by creationists, has nothing to do with creation or evolution. Dr Marc Kirscher, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School states: "In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all." (quoted in the Boston Globe 23 October 2005)58.162.245.148 14:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Kirscher really said that? I would disagree with that statement. Cells from different organisms do not always function the same way. Typically biologists (such as those studying molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology) study their favourite molecules or organs in several different organisms. Differences are often found and it is typical to see these differences discussed in papers often from an evolutionary perspective. Those that work on organelles in eucaryotic cells will often consider function with respect to endosymbiosis. It would be silly to give you an exhaustive list. I would suggest that Kirscher is out of touch with reality. David D. (Talk) 03:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I just read the Boston globe article and i now understand i missed Kirschner point when he states:
"In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself," Kirschner declares. ''Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all."[32]
The emphasis is the fact that he is considering all biology from 1905. in that context I think he is correct that evolution was not at the fore front of most biologists experiments. However things have changed and as I said above many discussions from recent biological research papers discuss the results in the context of evolution. The aritcle goes on to say:
Evolutionary science, argue Kirschner and Gerhart, will advance as more biologists place their lab research within this evolutionary framework. Nonetheless, many scientists think a convergence of biology's disciplines is now at hand. Whereas evolutionary biologists have famously debated whether the gene, organism, or even species is the proper unit of natural selection, current research increasingly integrates these things. "This is where it's happening," says Daniel Hartl, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard. "Evolutionists and others in the field are not arguing about reductionism any more. What's exciting is putting it all together, from the genetic level to the organism." Also from the Boston Globe article cited above.
So this just confirms that all biologists do consider evolution. It is the framework for modern research, even if it was not in 1920. David D. (Talk) 08:01, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Let me clarify. Firstly, I am not suggesting that ID articles could "withstand peer review", I was referring to the fact that ID review articles might get published through the backdoor, such as the Meyer review article, or even published despite really negative peer review. The scientific articles I cited above were all published despite extremely negative peer review, so there is a precident for such scientific publications. However, I do not believe this would happen for ID articles since it is political and NOT science.
Secondly, I used the word fear in the sense that "scientists fear they will have to waste their time with politics". They don't have the time or the resources, its hard enough just to keep a lab fully funded. David D. (Talk) 18:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks- I thought I was probably mis-interpreting your words. Anyway- whatever our opinions on the matter- the only thing that matters is making a good Wikipedia article. Sorry for not reading carefully enough. Christianjb 20:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Probability and units

I was criticized by anonymous editor 58.162.252.67 for using "(no units are given)" next to a probability. Here's the criticism:

OF COURSE no units are given because probability is a dimensionless NUMBER between 0 and 1. This critic needs more objectivity to avoid crass blunders)

Firstly, I find the tone of the above to be a little insulting.

First, I find you too hypersensitive, but very willing to write inflammatory statements about creationists.58.162.252.67 14:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I will however respond to the specific criticism.

When a probability is given it is usually per instance. For example, there is a 1 in 52 chance that a random playing card will be the 3 of Hearts. In this case, the instance is so trivial that few state that the instance is per-selecting a card.

That is colloquial usage. Strict usage, according to probability, is "a probability is a number between 0 and 1." Go and edit Wikipedia if you have a problem. And even in your colloquial usage, there are no units.58.162.252.67 14:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Now consider the probability of a molecular reaction. If I say there's a 1 in 52 chance of a molecule dissociating, what does that mean? Does it mean that 1 in every 52 molecules dissociate (eventually)? Does it mean that in the life-time of the universe 1 in every 52 molecules dissociate? Does it mean in the space of a second 1 in every 52 molecules dissociates? Does it mean that 1 in every 52 reactions result in dissociation? If so- how many reactions are there per second?

In the case of a probability for a cell coming into existance the situation is even more complicated! What can this possibly mean? How should I interpret this number? One in 52 universes produce that cell? One in 52 times I put the constituent atoms in a test tube I'll see the cell come into existance? (How long should I wait?) One in 52 Earth-like planets would produce that cell? One in 52 foetuses would develop that cell? Evolution would produce that cell 1 in 52 times? The list goes on and on. (I've used 1 in 52 as an example- it's not the value AiG uses.)

As an aside, this is also a probability stated after the event. Is it meaningful to ask about the probability Jupiter is a planet in the solar system? That Manchester United beat Liverpool in 1973? Maybe, but the premise has to be stated very very carefully.

Maybe it's a little bit brief to say- no units are given. In fact my criticism with the stated probability is far more than that. Christianjb 01:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well again- I find the above comments in this section insulting. Also, could anonymous users please not intersperse their comments with others. Put them below and indent. That way the comments are much easier to follow and it also shows respect for other users. Thanks
I do very half-heartedly agree with the argument that probability by itself does not have a unit- but rates do - and this is really the relevant number. Again- are we talking about once per lifespan of universe- or once per nanosecond? There is a small difference. The anon. editor did not answer any of these points. Christianjb 03:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Big news for Wikipedia?

According to various news sources today (search Wikipedia in google news) Wikipedia is going to prevent anonymous edits. There's also the possibility of forbidding users from contributing to articles about themselves (you know who you are). This is great news for this page. Christianjb 03:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I dunno. So far, the anons have had facts on their side, while CJB has been guilty of several inflammatory misrepresentations and scientific and mathematical errors.220.245.180.133 03:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your input. Christianjb 03:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately the news now seems to be that anons will only be forbidden from starting new articles. So, alas we will have to live with the anons longer yet.

Problems with anons:

  • No talk page
  • No idea whether I'm talking to 1 person or 20 people
  • Not even a slight accountability.
  • Organizations can get their employees to anonymously bombard a page daily with edits.
  • No idea if I'm having the same argument with the same person.

I've received a lot of criticism on this page- but I am far more accountable than most of my critics. I even provide my email address on my user page. Christianjb 10:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

from top of the page

Please note that edits by anon editor user:58.162.252.67, which are interspersed with other editors' comments have made this discussion page hard to follow. I am seeking for advocacy on this issue as well as many others by this editor. Christianjb 05:32, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Also- please note that the anonymous users have not always signed their comments. Please have respect for other users on this talk page. Thanks in advance for your cooperation. Christianjb 03:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Also- let me remind ALL (including myself) editors of this page. No personal attacks. Please- let's all take a few minutes to review this page. In the heat of the moment it may seem a good idea- but not only is it against the Wikipedia rules, it makes for poor arguments. We are here to make a great page- not to convert eachother. (I know some here will think that I'm just as guilty as everyone else, so I will make a point of rereading this page, as should everyone.)Christianjb 03:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


If you're looking for mediation, good luck, I don't think there's much they've made better. Better to picutre yourself in the wide wide west. Get out them six-shooters and take out the varmints. Y're on your own. There' s no nediator and no arbitratoor backing you up here! - Nunh-huh 07:16, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Let's continue this discussion at the bottom of this page [[User:Christianjb|Christianjb]

Religious discrimination?

There's an interesting blog post by professor of law Richard Bales [33] regarding "Religious Job Requirements for Creation Museum". (I thought I'd do my bit for AiG by creating this PR for them.)

Religious Job Requirements for Creation Museum
The group "Answers in Genesis" is building a 50,000 square-foot Creation Museum set to open in 2007 in Northern Kentucky -- just south of Cincinnati. The job description of every job at the museum -- including the description for housekeepers -- requires applicants to sign a "Statement of Faith." Here are just a few provisions in the Statement of Faith:
A. Priorities
The scientific aspects of creation are important, but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Sovereign, Creator, Redeemer and Judge.
B. Basics
The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. It is the supreme authority, not only in all matters of faith and conduct, but in everything it teaches. Its authority is not limited to spiritual, religious or redemptive themes but includes its assertions in such fields as history and science.
C. Theology
The Godhead is triune: one God, three Persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
All mankind are sinners, inherently from Adam and individually (by choice) and are therefore subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.
D. General
Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation.
The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.
The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.
Posted by Rick Bales. Thanks to Christian Burnham.

Christianjb 20:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Edit war

There is a ridiculous edit war gong on about Nazism and homosexuality. There are two good reasons why this should stop 1) homosexuality is not a key part of AiG. Their stance does not disagree significantly from other fundamentialist Christian organisations, so there is no point in belabouring the point here. It's like trying to insert a section arguing that God doesn't actually exist in every article about a church. Also inserting this stuff makes it looks like you are just trying to find anything bad about the organisation and put it in the article. It just doesn't belong here. Sure, note their stance of homosexuality, but don't have the argument here. DJ Clayworth 15:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I have removed some quotes from a person who is not (as far as I can tell) connected in anyway with AiG. DJ Clayworth 16:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
This article is also not the place to be arguing over the nature of science, or of the contributions to science made by those who believe in Young Earth Creationism. If the rate of change doesn't slow down here this will have to be protected. DJ Clayworth 19:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I have messaged DJ to see if he/she wants to help sort out this page. I am always looking for ways to make this page better. I agree with him/her that at the moment it's in danger of becoming an edit war.Christianjb 00:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Some points though- 1) Homosexuality is a key part of AiG. They devote several full articles to it. Their stance on homosexuality is a very important part of their philosophy. 2) Their stance may not differ from some other religious organizations, but so what? It's still important that people know what their stance is. 3) No- it's not like inserting that God doesn't exist in a religious article. I'm actually representing what they say on their pages- I'm not proposing alternative theological views. 4) Yes- exactly right. I am trying to find things which reflect poorly on the organization- which I believe to be a bunch of backwards despicable dishonest lying redneck fascist creeps. I am being honest about my POV here- in the same way that AiG is honest about their POV, in which they they characterize people with my politics and religious belief as promoting Nazism, ignorant, and basically in the service of Satan. So what? I'm doing these edits for a reason- and I'm not hiding that reason. However, the edits I make are as NPOV as I can make them (no matter what my motives are). Likewise, the anonymous editors are doing it for their own "impure" motives, which is to make AiG look as good as possible. As long as we can both use facts, sourced material and write in a NPOV style, there should not be a problem. 5) It's important to note that AiG's scientific (as opposed to theological) statements are well out of the mainstream- and to show why scientists dismiss them. This is standard Wikipedia NPOV policy, which I am only too happy to oblige! Christianjb 00:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
"bunch of backwards despicable dishonest lying redneck fascist creeps." This is from the guy who bleats piteously about the slightest insult against him.58.162.245.148 02:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, we're not here to convert eachother. As I pointed out- AiG has so many slanderous and offensive accusations about liberals, homosexuls, skeptics, etc. etc. that it's just false to accept that they are in any way neutral about political and religious issues and I don't think they themselves would claim to be particularly neutral. I just happen to be against pretty much all they stand for- and I really don't mind admitting that. As I specifically said above, their comments on homosexuality I find to be particularly offensive. Well- you either agree or disagree with wanting homosexuals to be killed- and I disagree. And I happen to think that an organization which explicitly links (over and over again) to a biblical passage explicitly calling for the murder of homosexuals (and endorses that are "creeps". That's my opinion. For the record. I'm not insulting the views of the other editors on this page- so this all seems a little beside the point. I included my comments above because so many have expressed an interest in my personal views- which let me remind you are personal. I am certainly not asking any other editor to agree with me- or to convert them- or have accused others of being bad people. What you believe is up to you.
Also- if you disagree with Wikipedia's No personal attacks policy then please take it up with them. If you want- you can make your own Wikipedia fork which doesn't have this policy, but as for me- I try and adhere to Wikipedia's rules. Thanks Christianjb 03:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Regardless, it was an insult, and very revealing. agapetos_angel 03:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes- I believe it was an insult. I was insulting Answers in Genesis. I was not insulting any editors on this page. This really isn't the place to argue our own personal beliefs- but this was made an issue on this page. This is the last time I will respond to Agapetos. Wiki-Linking "very revealing" to Passive_aggressive is not only unintentionally ironic, but it's only purpose seems to be to insult me. I have no interest in getting into a battle of personal opinions with Agapetos, and certainly not on a Wikipedia talk page. My only interest here is working on the article.Christianjb 03:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do to help sort this out. Let's get a few principles laid down first. Our job is to give a factual, neutral account of AiG. We can't let our own beliefs get in the way of what we write. So for example it is our job to describe what AiG believes about (for example) homosexuality. Howeever if we happen to think that those beliefs are 'slanderous and offensive' it it not our job to point that out. Some people will disagree about whether they are slanderous or offensive, and everyone else can work it out for themselves. Saying anything else is to be putting our own POV. Also insulting the organisation we are writing about is not a good idea. If you can't write about them, even on a talk page, without being insulting then you need to take very special care to ensure that your viewpoint doesn't come across.

We also need to keep the article relevant and balenced. Relevant means we don't need to talk about beliefs AiG share with very many other organistaions. Balenced means we need to give more coverage to the key beliefs and less to peripheral ones. They key belief of AiG is obviously science and creation. We also need to make sure don't fall into the trap of arguing over whether AiG is right or wrong in the article. The most important question people will come to the article to get answered is 'what does AiG believe', not 'is what they believe right'. Can we keep to that focus? DJ Clayworth 18:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


Working on the article itself, I've just removed a section on Nazi persecution of homosexuals, which seems to have no relevance whatsoever. There are some other things that I think could go.

The statement 'AiG does not condemn interracial marriage' is not really relevant, since hardly anyone does. Any reason why it should be there? Likewise I don't think the commentary on Leviticus is really appropriate. While it is 'taken as calling for the death penalty' in its original context, hardly any group, even among the most vociferous condemners of homosexual behaviour use it to suggest it be applied now. Unless there is some reason to think that AiG does call for the death penalty for gays then it doesn't really belong. Comments? DJ Clayworth 18:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, AiG specifically links to Lev several times in an article regarding homosexuality. They also claim that this law is relevant even today. It should not be removed- even if some find this offensive. Christianjb 23:29, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
If you can point out specific examples where the article says AiG is "right" or "wrong" then show me. There are some examples of quotes from AiG that may put them in a bad light- but it's up to the reader to judge whether those quotes are "right" or "wrong". There is nothing wrong with showing that AiG is a very controversial organization. Christianjb 23:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, yeah I didn't catch that Ernest Rohm reference. That's offensive to put in the article and clearly highly POV. For the record, I guess I'll point out that homosexuals are in every organization, and have done things that are just as good and bad as everyone else. Consider- would it be offensive to say: "People use politically correct statements, which is ironic, since a black person was involved in a murder".. uh no- that would be quite offensive. Christianjb 00:50, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh- and given the exact quote from AiG "The teaching of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 was certainly reaffirmed in the New Testament.", I think it's fair to point out that AiG most definitely does see Lev. 18:22 as part of their teaching. Again- I know that this upsets some people- but I don't see why we should euphamize this. I guess it can be argued that this is hardly a prominent part of their website- but I would argue that it's very important to highlight their most controversial statements. It's not just me- see the skepdic entry on creationism [34], which also mentions AiG in the context of Lev 20:13. Christianjb 00:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Nazis and Homosexuals. This is tough for a lot of people here. One group of people sees that there is no obvious connection between Sarfati's remarks and the Holocaust. However, I think it's worth pointing out that in the context of "sodomofascist" and "homonazi" it does have some relevance to point out that homosexuals were a group specifically targetted by the Nazis during the Holocaust. For instance, the term "Jewnazi" would be far more offensive than (the already extremely offensive) "feminazi" because of the history of persecution of the Jewish people. I know that a lot of editors here just don't agree with that and can't make this connection at all. I guess I'll be happy to abide by the majority decision here- but I do want to explain my reasoning. Christianjb 01:07, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding "interracial marriage". It may actually be appropriate to leave this in. Some Biblical literalists have used scripture to claim that interracial marriage is wrong. AiG is insistant that a literal reading denies the concept of race- and so sees nothing wrong with interracial marriage. I'm not a biblical fundamentalist- so I'm not sure how controversial this is in such circles- but it may be of importance to some readers. Since it's only one sentence, I vote to leave this in. Christianjb 01:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, my reasoning about not emphasising the Leviticus quote is not because I think it is irrelevant to what AiG is saying, but because it's a quote that nearly every Christian organisation uses, and in much the same may. I suspect, though I have not checked, that Homosexuality and Christianity refers to it extensively. Still, you are right that some mention belongs here as it's key to AiG's case. However I think commentary on it is unnecessary - it belong at Homosexuality and Christianity, to which we should refer.

I also agree that the 'homonazi' quote belong here - use of such language is rare even among the groups that vocally condemn homsexual practice. I also agree it's ironic because of Nazi persecution of gays. But anything more than the briefest of mentions of the irony would be off-topic, surely. (The extent of that seems to be disputed too, so mentioning it might draw a rash of edits on that subject alone). For the thing about interracial marriage I think it depends how widespread is the belief that interracial marriage is wrong. If it's widespread among biblical inerrantists then we should mention that AiG is different - if it isn't widespread then it's not worth mentioning. I've never heard it, and I know a lot of people with inerrantist views - but I could be wrong.

In general in Wikipedia I'm a big fan of letting the facts speak for themselves. Quote what the organisation says and let people interpret it for themselves. It's like in the Saddam Hussein article - all we have to do is say what he did, without having to explicitly explain that killing thousands of people is wrong. DJ Clayworth 04:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. Do you want to try making some changes and letting us comment? Christianjb 04:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Again- regarding Lev. and AiG. It's still worth highlighting because it's a prominent litmus test of Biblical inerrantists. Do they or do they not agree with the murder of homosexuals as explicitly ordained by that passage? In AiG's case, it is shown that they explicitly link to that passage, not once but several times in the same article on homosexuality. This is information that is worth noting. I know that there are interpretations which say that this law is no longer in effect, and there appears to be another AiG page which mentions this idea wrt Levitical laws, which I'm happy to have mentioned in the article. But the fact remains that on the page dealing with homosexuality they explicitly use these quotes to denounce homosexuality, with no indication that these quotes no longer apply today. Now- from your perspective, this may look like I'm dragging up some irrelevant parts of the Bible to cause trouble- but from a skeptic's perspective it's actually very very relevant to see how inerrentists handle this sort of information. Also- even if most inerrentists are similar to AiG, that doesn't mean that this information doesn't belong on this page. AiG is a multimillion dollar organization devoted to re-educating people about their interpretation of the Bible. It's important that we highlight their controversial opinions.c Christianjb 06:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I know many biblical inerrantists, and not one would support the murder of homosexuals based on this passage. Have we evidence that AiG believes this? DJ Clayworth 02:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, made some changes. See what you think. Now the Nazi connection has been removed I no longer think we have a major problem here. DJ Clayworth 02:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


This is fine with me. I agree that AiG does not explicitly call for the deaths of homosexuals- but they do link several times to a Scriptural passage which does, without commenting (on that page anyway) that this law should not apply. It's really code-speak that would be understood by most non-creationists. Plus, an important test of a literalist organization is to see just how far they are willing to go with "difficult" Biblical passages.
In any case, I'm happy with your edits. Thanks for the contribution. Christianjb 02:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Article needs to be condensed

The article is 37 kb and lacks the flow to justfiy the size. I believe Aig's views on social and moral issues should be condensed to two or three paragraphs. The article fails to go over Aig's scientific(or pseudo-scientific) views which is the most important part of the organization. If anything, that deserves mulitiple sections. Aig's views on natural dissastors and terrorist attacks should be merged into the morals section. It seems the article has picked all the controversial moral and social issues while barely mentioning the more important scientific issues. What do you all think? Falphin 02:25, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Tough one. They're equal parts science and morality based. Then there's the criticism that this isn't the place to dissect AiG's creationist science- since that's done on other Wikipedia pages. Also- we're just recovering from an edit war- so maybe now's not the best time to be chopping major parts of the article out. Maybe in a couple of weeks.Christianjb 02:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
One possibility is to create sub-articles. Like a "Answers in Genesis's scientific(or pseduo-scientific probably will require a vote to decide) views"(hopefully a better title. Aig moral and social views. Criticisms of Answers and Genesis's. And a controversy article. Even thought that sounds like a lot for one organization I know we could fill it all up. I imagine the creation museum will also eventually merrit its own article once it is opened to the general public. Falphin 02:40, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work to manage. Can we postpone this for a couple of weeks? As I said- we've just come off a major edit war. I agree that the creation museum eventually deserves its own article. The article is too long- but not by that much. Christianjb 02:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I have no issue, with waiting. I don't have time to do anything on wikipedia right now. I just feel that the article needs to have work done. This article is on tract to reaching the Good article list. However, it needs more citations, and needs to only include the most important stuff on this page, and have other articles for the rest. To avoid another edit war, a sub page could be created and then later merged once things are settled down. Falphin 02:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree it needs to be cut down. Specifically, there is a whole section that is basically a standard Creation vs Evolution debate that only makes passing reference to AiG specifically. I really think this section needs to be take out altogether and only how AiG differs from other creationists should be kept. The article is supposed to explain AiG, not assess the validity of their arguments. Ashmoo 05:03, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Constructive comments

I found this article suprisingly balanced, intelligent and npov compared to the other wikipedia articles on creationism: well done to the editors! I do have a few criticisms about factual errors:

  1. the article talked about the evidence for the big bang theory and seperated the big bang theory from inflation theory, dark matter, dark energy, cosmic strings (domain walls and other symmetry breakings) and the cosmological principle. However, remove this separation is not taught in universities and from personal experience most physicists wouldn't accept this separation (take it from me a physicist). In fact if you remove these, what you call addons, you have the creationist model. Creationist Walter reMine (he has confirmed with me that he is a creationist not an ID) actually takes a different approach and "supports" the big bang theory and criticizes the "addons" (which i suppose is a more subtle way of promoting the creationist cosmology). Whether or not his strategy gets adopted or not remains to be seen. Anyway the cited evidence for the big bang theory is also evidence for creationist cosmology.
  2. The article talked about dinosaurs and humans buried together but broke its ussual policy in including the Aig response. It can be found on their site and i think from memory that it can be summarised "we do have examples of dinosaur and human bones together but unfortunately we cannot prove whether the burials are primary or secondary." I'm guessing that they would also call this an argument from silence but check the site to confirm.
  3. the article had incorrect statements on AiG's views on natural selection (they say they are simply aware of it). Aig strongly support natural selection and in fact require it to account for all the species within a kind. They also claim that the original discoverer of natural selection was edmund blyth, a creationist. search their site for "blyth" for details. (Some ID theorists by contrast do doubt natural selection)
  4. the article containd the comment "also it would be hard to explain how thousands of disparate journals spread accross many countries could have connived to exclude one specific group" this statement is POV., Also it misrepresents AiGs position, they make no claims that any "conniving" has happened. They also refer to case studies such as the smithsonian controversy to give evidence that an unconscious materialistic bias exists in science.
  5. This article gives the impression that Aig believe that there is a Hollywood conspiracy. AiG have no such belief
  6. this criticism is a little more grey than the others but i will suggest it anyway. the article makes the statement that "the more extraordinary the claim the more evidence is needed". But to some an old earth is an extraordinary claim so which side is making the extraordinary claim isPOV (unsigned by User:203.206.112.219)

Science section mass culling

Looking through the science section, I see that most of it is not very encyclopedic, but rather an essay on the flaws of Young Earth Creationism. The vague terms 'most scientists','many scientists', etc are repeatably used. This is verging on 'Original Research'.

I think this article is long enough as is, and the criticism section should only outline direct criticism of AiG along with actual quotes (or cites) of those criticisms. A link should be provided to more general criticism of YEC (of which there are numerous on the web).

I know this is a controversial subject, but ask for good faith from my fellow editors. Regards, Ashmoo 03:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks like a whitewash of all material critical of AiG to me. Guettarda 04:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry if it looks that way, but it is not the case. What do you think of the points I raised in the above para? Ashmoo 04:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Right you are. I have culled some duplications, POV, original research and the repeated "vague terms".58.162.252.58 00:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC)