FRC rejects creationism

Here's a little nugget from Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, mocking Al Gore and climate change:

During the session, Gore's "Chicken Little" scenarios were met with skepticism, particularly from Senate Republicans like Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., who said he, like many scientists, believed the dire global warming projections were a "hoax." On the House side, the former vice president was called a prophet by some Democratic members but his revelations were challenged by others. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, cited 600,000-year-old scientific evidence that Gore's carbon dioxide claims are false. When Gore introduced ...

Wait. Back up a moment. What was that last bit from Rep. Joe Barton?

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, cited 600,000-year-old scientific evidence ...

600,000 years?

B-b-b-but the Family Research Council doesn't believe that the earth is 600,000 years old! How can Barton have "scientific evidence" that's 594,000 years older than the universe itself?

Maybe what Perkins and Barton meant to say was that they had secret scientific evidence that appeared to be hundreds of thousands of years old because God decided to make it seem that old when he created it along with everything else 6,000 years ago. Maybe after hiding all those trilobite fossils and quickly (but very carefully) layering the sediment of the Grand Canyon, God decided to also stash away some artificially aged "evidence" that heat-trapping gases don't actually trap heat.

Or maybe Barton and Perkins just got so caught up with their unsubstantiated attacks on Al Gore that, in their excitement, they forgot that their political careers depend on the support of people they have duped into accepting the unbiblical hucksterism of young-earth, scientific-creationism.

Fundies please take note: Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council believes that the earth is at least 600,000 years old.

Comments

[Kathryn from Sunnyvale]

Interesting, because in the LB thread on the missing children, a comment confirms that LaHaye believes anything other than Young Earth Creationism is wrong and damaging. See his book "Mind Siege" (I tried to get an exact quote, but the Amazon 'look inside' feature isn't working for me).

[Theriomorph]

That's what you call Very Interesting.

Did you see this?

[Theriomorph]

Whoops, the link didn't go up - "Evangelist Chuck Missler Disproves Evolution with a Jar of Peanut Butter" via Alternet - http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/50013/

They aren't funny, but this is.

[MichaelR]

This seems relevant.

[Vanya]

I don't know, relative to the actual age of the Earth 600,000 years is not much different from 6,000 years. Certainly life as we know it could never have evolved in a mere 600 thousand years so that may well fall within a range that is still acceptable to Creationists since it is still de facto anti-evolutionist. Now if he had said "60 million year old evidence" you could hoist him on that petard, but I don't think this remark will get the crazies riled up.

[NonyNony]

I dunno, Fred - isn't there something about special dispensation for lying if they lying is done for a righteous cause? Perhaps they're lying about their acceptance of 600,000 year old evidence to protect their righteous cause -- of letting manufacturers continue polluting and letting us all drive Humvees if we want. You remember Jesus's sermon on the mount, right - "Blessed are the Humvee drivers, for they shall own the road".

Seriously - the FRC is an interest group that is supposedly about "Christian values" and "Protecting the Family". What definition of these topics incorporates "shills for big business" into the mix?

[the opoponax]

the part that believes that, the more we wreck the earth, the more obvious it is that the End Times are here and the Rapture is imminent. if we prove conclusively that the problem isn't a wrathful god but our collective carbon footprint, it kind of shoots The 700 Club's M.O. to shit.

[Ken]

Maybe what Perkins and Barton meant to say was that they had secret scientific evidence that appeared to be hundreds of thousands of years old because God decided to make it seem that old when he created it along with everything else 6,000 years ago. Maybe after hiding all those trilobite fossils and quickly (but very carefully) layering the sediment of the Grand Canyon, God decided to also stash away some artificially aged "evidence" that heat-trapping gases don't actually trap heat.

Omphalos Effect -- the idea that God deceptively created the Cosmos 6000 years ago with all the appearances of Great Evolutionary Age, evidence against Young Earth Creationism carefully crafted and placed in the newly-created Cosmos. But if you believe any of that physical evidence, You Burn In Hell! God Says "GOTCHA!"

(Originally proposed by a Victorian named Gosse, in his book Omphalos -- Greek for "belly button".)

And if God created everything 6000 years ago with a false past, who's to say He didn't actually do it ten minutes ago, and everything you remember from over ten minutes ago was Created With The World?

I dunno, Fred - isn't there something about special dispensation for lying if they lying is done for a righteous cause?

"Takkiya" (sp?), in Islam.

Slack, I've had fight after fight with Young Earth Creationists -- it seems that all Christianity is about these days is Young Earth Creationism and Pin the Tail on The Antichrist. I've had one list I'm on blow up and melt down into continuous Creation vs Evolution flamewars.

When did Christ abdicate his throne and put Young Earth Creationism in His place?

"Faith is the substance of Things Not Seen." -- St Paul the Apostle
"Faith is believing what you KNOW ain't so." -- Mark Twain

[fischer]

Can you provide some helpful links to understanding the arguments of those who suppose global warming to be a hoax. I've seen Gore's movie, and I've heard rebuttal, but only in vague reference to these individual pieces of data. And never, seemingly, from the mouth of a united front of scientists. Does such a voice exist, with any uninamity within, within the scientific community?

[Ian]

Ken: The world can’t have been created 10 minutes ago because Bishop Ussher the Bible says it was created 6000 years ago.

[Luke]

Uh, taqqiya isn't merely "lying for a righteous cause." It's dissimulating or omitting the truth of your faith to protect yourself from either immediate or future prosecution or death.

It was a way for the Shi'a to hide for the first 300 years of Islam.

[Ivica]

@fischer:

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is the official body of scientists that compile the data related to global warming and climate change.

The big report is their Assessment Report, the most recently completed one being the 3rd, in 2001. The fourth is due out this year, and parts are already available.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/reports.htm

I warn you, it's big and technical. I'd recommend reading the summary for policy makers, which is a much more digestable 94 pages, first.

Also, as an aside: this is my first post here, so I'd like to say hi. I've been reading for a while, and look forward to every new update.

[julia]

I trust school boards are going to use this in every lawsuit the FRC tries to fund from here on in.

[Kathryn from Sunnyvale]

Fischer,

Two places that summarize the "fight":

1. Check out the Realclimate (realclimate.org) blog. They're scientists who cover issues in detail, patiently.

You wouldn't believe how many times someone will pop into the comments saying "you scientists think you know everything, but you for got about *water*, Ha! You forgot about the *sun*. Ha!" (Both atmospheric water and solar activity are well-known and modeled. No one forgot about them, that's just a oft-repeated lie.) And speaking of cliches...

2. Look up "Global Warming Skeptic Bingo". It lists (and details) a bunch of cliched arguments that get trotted out. Predictably trotted out, so much so that you could play bingo.

Similarly on the topic of Young Earth Creationism, check out
1. The Index of Creationist Claims: hundreds of claims, with responses and references for the reader to learn more. Again, unbelievable how many times someone will say "You darwinists think you know everything, but how come there are still monkeys, Ha! DNA has no new information, ha!" These cliches are so old that there's been time to write books about them, and build a database of them. [Funny, other scientists don't get called Newtonists and Einsteinists and Watson&Crickists.]

2. What I find scary is that Answers in Genesis- a *creationist* group- made a list of "arguments creationists shouldn't use anymore." And even those arguments will get used, over and over.

[PK]

To be fair, most 6k Creationists claim God gave the earth an appearance of old age for functionality, not deception. They say He created the world as He did Adam: fully grown.

I'm more of a Gap-Plus Theorist, myself.

[Bugmaster]

No no no, you guys have it all wrong. Sure, the evidence against global warming says it's 600,000 years old. But, what is a "year" ? Obviously, we don't mean a literal year, that'd be silly. Instead, in this case, a "year" just means "four seasons", or four contiguous time units of any size; probably days or seconds. After all, a year is like a second in the eyes of our Lord, is it not ? Really, I'm amazed I still have to explain such simple things.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to leave for the ICR convention to explain to ignorant so-called scientists why the Flinstons are honest-to-god gospel truth. God bless !

[arghous]

Whoa, back up some more:

...Senate Republicans like Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., who said he, like many scientists, ...

Jim Inhofe's a scientist. Ha, hilarious stuff.

[Not Today]

PK, the geology on your linked site is just as bad the young earth creationist stuff. Here's the problem: all the scientific evidence, and I mean all of it - from geology, paleontology, cosmology, astronomy, archeology, and biology - shows that the book of Genesis has no correlation to the real history of the universe or our planet. Thus any attempt to harmonize science with Genesis will inevitably result in distorted, crappy pseudo-science as seen at christiangeology.com

[Not Today]

PK, the geology on your linked site is just as bad the young earth creationist stuff. Here's the problem: all the scientific evidence, and I mean all of it - from geology, paleontology, cosmology, astronomy, archeology, and biology - shows that the book of Genesis has no correlation to the real history of the universe or our planet. Thus any attempt to harmonize science with Genesis will inevitably result in distorted, crappy pseudo-science as seen at christiangeology.com

[Jeffrey Kramer]

To be fair, most 6k Creationists claim God gave the earth an appearance of old age for functionality, not deception. They say He created the world as He did Adam: fully grown.

PK, I don't know about "most 6K Creationists" but most public apologists for 6K Creationism firmly deny that the earth has an appearance of old age; they reject all the apparent evidence for a 4.5G earth as 'bad science'.

Also, regarding Ken's comments: while some 'Omphalists' may think that the appearance of age is a test of faith, with God preparing to smite those who believe the appearances, I don't think Phillip Gosse himself took that line. He was described by his son Edmund (later a noted literary critic) as a basically gentle and humane individual who was sincerely trying to reconcile faith and science.

[PattyP]

fischer asked:

Can you provide some helpful links to understanding the arguments of those who suppose global warming to be a hoax.

Check out Grist's How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.