Eric and Paul discuss what the definition of a real scientist is. They show that many secularists do not accept creationists as good scientists by definition.

the following program is made possible by the friends and partners of God quest ministries from the C. T. N. Studio in Pensacola florida. This is creation today where we believe the bible is literally true and scientifically accurate from the very beginning and were not ashamed to say. So I’m your host eric Hovland and I’m paul taylor and we’re here with each episode to answer your questions on science from the bible cover, what’s going on in Creation today and why it matters to you. If you have questions send them into questions at Creation today dot org on twitter. You can visit us at Creation today or on facebook facebook dot com slash creation today. Thanks for joining us. The questions that we’re going to be covering in this episode erIC they’re all from the questions that were sent in for the live webcast that we didn’t have a great time. That was it was great fun. And there’s gonna be another live webcast coming up very soon so don’t miss that. It’s going to be on june the 15th and you’ll need to go to dr dino dot com forward slash webcast in order to get that june the 15th and we’ll have lots more news about that. And we’ve also got other things. We’ve got the big three hours as well at the moment. That’s right this month only. Yeah the creation seminar with Kent, this is our new one by the way, it’s got a bunch of different languages on their the first four seminars we’ve got up to 31 different languages translated and on this. So this is our new international version of the seminar series. Excellent. And we’ve got the beginnings series, A man called eric Hovan. Yeah, he’s alright and economics with chad Hovan those three together for the amazing price of $99 from creation dot org. I like that story by the way, our first question comes in and this is a really good question as I thought about it, because it shows some assumptions on the evolutionist. Let me read it and I’ll let you hit this pole. How do evolutionists come up with the idea that creationists are not real scientists? Because you’ve heard this many times you hear this over and over again, you know, you must have come across it as well, not real scientists. And there’s always an assumption behind that, isn’t there? Because what is the definition of a real scientist exactly. I always wondered should I go to college, a secular college, get my degree in Biology or in something like that, then they would respect me. I don’t think that they would, they wouldn’t they wouldn’t, I mean, they certainly haven’t done that for anybody that’s that’s already done that and become a christian or is a christian, good friend of mine who I can think of in the United Kingdom Professor Andy Macintosh dr Andy Mackintosh who is one of the United Kingdom’s most eminent scientists, highly, highly well thought. There was one of awards for his research for his research team doing building an engine based on the activity of the bombardier beetle. And and and there’s a godly man and the creationist. And in a debate with a certain well known atheists as atheist accused him of not knowing anything about science, you know, because he’s a creationist, he has nothing, he has no knowledge of scientists. But now his definition of science probably would have been more like evolution and not real science. Well, this is the point that the definition you see, because I was in a debate on british television channel with a theistic evolutionist called dr Dennis alexander and he came out with the statement and he’s done this a couple of times. I’ve heard him come up with similar statements many times. He came out with the statement that no biologist disbelieves the theory of evolution. And so it wasn’t no professional biologist disbelieves the theory of evolution. So of course I I named a few and his rejoining his rejoinder was no reputable professional biologist Disbelieves the theory of evolution. Let me just change the definition of what a reputable. What is the definition of a reputable biologist in that sort of phrase? I think what people are meant to here is actually you’re not a reputable biologist. If you don’t believe the theory of evolution, that is the definition. And that’s a fallacy? It is a logical fallacy is great. What’s the name of that particular fallacy is known by the wonderful name of the no true Scotsman fallacy explain that because this was hilarious to me, Just tell the story. I love the no true Scotsman fallacy. It it basically goes something like this. Hamish says to Dugal their Scottish name. Hamish says, no Scotsman ever puts sugar on his porridge porridge is what they call oatmeal man. I do that. Yeah, no, no Scotsman ever put sugar on his porridge. And google says, well, jock, he’s a Scotsman as well. He put sugar on his porridge. So Hamish says, no true Scotsman ever put sugar on his porridge. I can’t do the accent, I’m afraid so. The he he basically changed the definition. Oh, well, if he was a true Scotsman, he wouldn’t, you know, it doesn’t matter if you were born in Edinburgh, you’ve got clan background, you might be wearing a kilt as well at the time. But it doesn’t matter if you put sugar on your poet, you are not a true Scotsman. And in the same way, that’s what people are doing today saying, if you don’t believe in evolution, you’re not a true scientist, It comes up all the time. You hear this is a very, very common fallacy. I wish they would be a little bit more intellectually honest when they discuss this? Because I did an interview with a geologist who was at a meeting in California, that? Where was that? This was probably about a year ago. This 20 minute interview with this, this geologist who’s in the field. He said, listen, you can’t give out my identity. We had to blur his face. He said, I could lose my job. He said, I realize there is a bias in the work that we do and people that hire us have certain expectations of what they want to come back already. And so you gotta be real careful how you work. But then he went on to say, look, I don’t believe in the millions of years, I’m a geologist, I’m in the field, I’m working right now and I do not hold to that. The responses that I got when I posted that video were, well, he’s not a real geologist and it’s because he wouldn’t accept the millions of years. He wouldn’t accept the Colorado River carving Grand Canyon over millions of years. He doesn’t understand it. He’s not a real geologist. And of course you see these in viewers will often see these sort of comments in in facebook discussions and blog discussions and comments and so on. As soon as you say something that they don’t like, that doesn’t tie in with the evolutionary theory or big Bang theory or whatever it might be. It’s because you’re not really a proper scientist, you don’t you don’t really understand these things. It’s sad. I don’t I don’t I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but I spent a long time as a school teacher was the head of department at one point and I’ll blow your trumpet. Did you know that paul was the head of a school science department one time and he did actually some work on the science that was involved in the curriculums there over in England. So there we go to two. Yeah. And the thing is that I I mentioned this one time in in a in a blog discussion that this is what I’ve been and one of the comments I got back was no doubt you were sacked because you taught creationism. Obviously you weren’t a very good scientist because you didn’t believe in the evolution theory. It’s interesting actually that I don’t know of any scientist and in the UK was ever sacked from the school for teaching creation as well. But that is actually happening here. That was exposed in the movie expelled that Ben Stein did. And uh, and other lawsuits that are coming up, there is certainly a the way my dad used to put it was if you were in Communist Russia, and you’re a school teacher and you told the kids kids, I don’t think communism is the way to go. I think capitalism is the way to go, what’s going to happen. You would have gotten that you’d be shoveling snow in Siberia, you’ve got to go with the status quo and in the same way in the academics that we’re in today. Boy teachers know, be very careful about questioning evolution because there is a real threat against that teaching. Well, that’s something that you see a lot in universities and another very, very eminent scientist who is quite well known in the in the UK for being for being a creationist. But because of this particular anecdote, I’m not going to mention his name or the university where he’s at all though. It’s a it’s a russell group university, one of the top universities in the UK and he was he was sharing at a conference that he had colleagues who didn’t believe the theory of evolution as well who questioned it or had problems with it, but they could not admit it publicly. They felt they could not admit it publicly because it would it would damage their careers. One thing I wonder and we’ll have to get into this in another show. What exactly has evolution added to scientific knowledge? I mean, when we think about the different branches of science that were started really by creationist, I gotta say, what benefit do we? I mean, the evolution theory is not why we have computers. Evolution theory is not why we have automobiles. Evolution theory is not why we have a lot of the immunizations or or drugs or surgeries that are, that are being done today. It’s not from it’s not from the evolution theory, but yet that’s what they try to say. Well, how do you think we got computers and cars and landed a man on the moon. You know, they like to say evolution is responsible for all that. And it’s just simply not true. It doesn’t make any sense at all. None whatsoever. Well, we’ve got more to talk about. We want to come back and talk about biology class and teachers and vestigial organs will be back to discuss that right after this break. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mm, mm hmm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, mm hmm. Thanks. Welcome back to Creation today. Where we’re answering your questions on creation Evolution, Science and the bible. Want to remind you that we have a live broadcast coming up at 11 o’clock a. M Central time on june 15th Wednesday june 15th. Love for you to join us. Feel free to submit your questions. We’d love to answer those live on that broadcast also for the month of june only, we’ve got the big three on a special sale. So if you want to get the big three, you can do that. That’s my Dad’s Doctor Hoven seminar series, the beginning series and our new gastronomic series. Oh, you could get that at the creation story dot org If you really wanted to get that at a great place. That’s great. I love that store. Great one. So we’re looking forward to the live webcast. And we had some questions from the previous webcast that we did. And here’s another one that we we didn’t get time to answer in there. This email says in my biology class, my teacher talked about the appendix being vestigial and therefore evidence for evolution. I raised my hand and asked if she would tell the class she was incorrect if I brought evidence that it wasn’t vestigial when I did. She said, I guess that’s why evolution kept the appendix after all. How do you approach someone with that mindset? You know, and this is what’s interesting. I don’t remember who said that. I’d have to look it up, but they described evolution as a fog that fits any landscape. No matter what evidence comes up, they’re going, Evolution is the presupposed the predetermined truth. Now, all the evidence must fit with what I already believe, just like my presupposition, I Presuppose that God’s word is true. So I know everything I look at must conform to his word. Both creationists and evolutionists have a presupposition and that’s something that I don’t believe people realize that we both have these presuppositions. We both assume something before we even look at the facts. We’re not really looking at it from a neutral perspective, are we? That’s right. That’s right. You know, one of the interesting things always got me about the whole concept of vestigial organs anyway, is how evolutionists thought that helped their case anyway, You know, supposing it was true. Supposing that that the appendix was something that used to work and had been switched off. How does that help evolution anyway? That’s that’s the opposite of evolution. It’s things degrading. Yes. You’re not gaining anything new. You’re losing stuff. Exactly. Or is that how it works? You lose everything until you’ve got it all? It could be heard heard of bank managers doing that sort of thing. That has happened. All you need is a bailout and you’re good to go. So there’s a problem then in the question isn’t there? There really is. But what do you make about the the teacher’s attitude. Huh? I just saw it as um no matter what the students said, it wasn’t going to affect the teaching of evolution. So when the teacher says, I guess that’s why evolution kept the appendix after all, she’s just simply changed what they thought to be true and changed. Okay, this evidence used to be for evolution. Now we find out it’s still useful. Oh well it’s still gonna be evidence for evolution. Yes. And I would look at that and go, all you’re doing is shifting with the new evidence that comes in. You’re not really scientifically critiquing the evolution theory. That’s that’s right. I mean there’s a number of things that we can unpick there aren’t there? We talked in the last with the last question about logical fallacies we mentioned the no true Scotsman fallacy. She comes out here. This is this teacher comes out with another logical fallacy. It’s the fallacy known as ratification. Yes. That’s right now ratification is the idea that you ascribe personality to something that clearly has no personality. And you get that when people say things to us, like Science says that this happens, of course, Science says nothing of the sort you know, science isn’t a person, that’s what we’ve got here. I guess that is why evolution kept the appendix after all. As if evolution has this great idea marvelous, I’m evolution, I’ve got this marvelous idea. Let’s keep the appendix because it’s got these these marvelous functions for people. I love it. They really do prescribe it as a almost a living organ in a way that it is, it is their creator, it is there their ability to create things as evolution is the creator is the creation myth. But what’s interesting here is that they are being completely inconsistent of course, because the whole idea about evolution is that it does not have an end in sight, right? It doesn’t have an it’s mindless, it’s mindless, random, mindless chance and time. Now of course popular evolutionist like to forget this, you know, you’ve got this this whole book, say by Richard Dawkins called climbing mount improbable where he says, you know, you don’t have to go up the steep side of the cliff, you just have a single tiny little idea away ideas to get you up a little change in the time to get to the top now each of those little changes is not possible. But even if it were even if we allowed them that how do they know that’s the end in sight at the top because all those changes going to add up to that final change which has given them the evolutionary advantage that they think they need. And so there’s got to be an end in sight there. They’re implying there’s an end in sight and yet they don’t believe there’s an end in sight. So it’s actually completely inconsistent. I love the argument on the vestigial organs just simply showing look there really aren’t any, what was it? 100 years ago there were some 108 or 100 and 10 vestigial organs on the list of things that they didn’t think we needed in our bodies. And as we’ve continued to learn we’ve realized oh that does serve a function that does do something. The appendix, for example, is where some immune responses are initiated out of the appendix. Now you can live without your appendix but just because you can live without something doesn’t mean you don’t need it. I mean you can live without both your eyes, both your arms, both your legs and both your ears. That doesn’t mean you don’t need them, does it? That’s right. I mean, so saying that you can live without something doesn’t mean it’s vestigial. Exactly, yes. I mean we’ve we’ve known that since surgery began, people had all sorts of things removed and still managed to managed to get along without them. But we’re still need them there. Yeah. It’s just a nonsensical argument. There’s a great book by the way that we just started carrying. It includes all kinds of vestigial things that they thought were vestigial called vestigial organs are fully functional. And it goes through and shows them because one of the evolutionists, I don’t mean to embarrass anybody here. But one of the evolutionist arguments is why do males have nipples? Isn’t that kind of weird? And I always tell them that so we don’t look funny in bathing suits. But, but it goes through and explains them in here. Some of the different things that the coccyx, the tailbone that some people say is vestigial. It is not the appendix, it is not. And things like that. So well, David minton has a definition for vestigial organs. He says that they’re simply organs that nobody’s found the use for. Yes, that’s exactly right actually statement about ignorance. But I think we also mentioned like we did in the previous program in the live webcast. So when you’re confronting a teacher like this, there needs to be a great deal of respect in how we address so many students want to go in there and hey, I got the truth and they want to almost bully people with the truth rather than doing it as, as the bible says in second peter three with meekness and fear with gentleness and respect approaching them. But there are plenty of tools that, that, that, that people can have if they need to be able to get the information for these things. I mean, your father came up with with some here we’ve got are you being brainwashed? I’m being taught evolution to help books in my science class and also in my biology class. Very important books that just give the information that you can respectfully bring back. We’ve even had individuals take, for example, our help book, buy them in bulk and you can get them really cheap and give them to every single biology students in their community so that they can have the truth and that’s the whole point. We want people to challenge what is being taught. It’s a religious worldview. That’s right. It’s also the case as well that parents of Children in public schools need to be aware that these things are going on. Perhaps not everybody is aware of the research done by ken Hammond answers in genesis in the book already gone, which just lists some of the important points there about the, about how public school is just it’s it’s really devastating the culture, it really is. We have more to talk about. We’ll be back after the break to discuss this. Our three most popular resources are now available at special package price. Get our award winning creation seminar are beginning series and are topical gotta gnomic series, all for just $99 for answers about creation evolution and dinosaurs thousands around the world have turned to dr Kent heavens fast paced, fully illustrated creation seminar. It’s our most requested resource and now features 31 foreign language subtitles for creation experience for groups. Eric Heavens. Beginning series includes a handy guide that provides practical ways to apply each lesson to everyday life. Hear what the Almighty has to say about the Almighty dollar in our new topical DVD series Got Economics a fun, engaging, fact filled journey into God’s wisdom on money for a limited time. Get all three resources for just $99 to order call 18774793466 or visit creation store dot org for the big three package. Welcome back, you’re watching Creation today with me paul taylor and with derek chauvin and remember we’re talking about the big three package that you can get during the month of june 2011 which we showed you before. And don’t forget as well, the live webcast which you can see on june the 15th Wednesday june the 15th by going to dr dino dot com forward slash webcast. It’s going to be at 11 a.m. And we sure would love to see you there. This next question comes in again from that last live broadcast we did that we didn’t get to How do scholars and scientific communities communities benefit from a system that denies a supernatural creator? What is the benefit to denying the supernatural and only looking at the natural? How does that help? It’s a superb question. It really is. It opens up big discussion there. It just reminds me a little bit about it’s in a sense related to the last question we’re looking at. But it reminds me of one of the things that my daughter said to me when she was studying zoology at the university. And Quite often, if they were looking at the anatomy of a particular animal, then maybe the lecture would feel obliged to spend about five or 10 minutes talking about how that organ evolved in their mind. How how it could have come about by an evolutionary package. And it gave her a marvelous opportunity to talk to friends. You know, on the way back to accommodation after the lecture saying, you know, She said to me, you know, Daddy, if they if they had if they’d missed out that 10 minutes, it would have made no difference whatsoever to understanding anything about the anatomy of that particular feature. And she was able to talk about that and use that as a means of sharing the gospel. And that really is the truth. Evolution doesn’t bring any huge significance to the scientific world. It’s not helping us. It’s not let’s not do anything there. You could you could learn all of every single branch of science without ever hitting evolution. That’s right. I mean, how is evolution going to aid a surgeon in what they do. And in many ways it could be argued that evolution has actually hindered by what we were talking about before about vestigial organs. It may therefore have influence. May be far too many people in the past in my generation and probably generation before far too many people probably have their appendices taken out because they were assumed to be this leftover from evolution when maybe in many cases that shouldn’t have happened. Obviously it has to happen if there’s a major problem and maybe there were too many, I don’t know, we can never prosper who proved that. So what does it benefit to? Not look at a supernatural and only look at the natural world? What does that give any help does that? I think it’s again more of a hindrance. And I think that causes more of a problem in reality for scientists that are going, no, I have to explain the origin of the universe from within the natural world, from within the universe. I mean, it’d be kind of like me going, hey, I’m gonna try to explain the origin of this computer right here from within the computer. I’m not going to look outside. I’m not going to look to a creator, Somebody who made it. I’m going to look at everything inside here and I’m gonna try to figure out how it came about? Yes, it’s impossible to do that. It doesn’t, it doesn’t make any sense at all. And of course good science in the past has been driven by the knowledge that these things are created, but where where there is where there is an advantage for such people, if you might call it that we don’t see it as an advantage. Whether it’s an advantage is that it does enable them in their minds to be able to think about science without reference to God. As as Dawkins said, the theory of evolution gave atheists the chance to have some sort of intellectual respectability. Now, we would argue that, but that is the advantage that they see that they have. And another atheist evolutionist called Richard Lowenstein said something quite interesting and this is a bit of an extended quote. So please bear with me, I’ll perhaps just pick out bits of it. But it’s, he said at one point in a book called Billions and Billions of Demons, he said, our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. Let’s see what he’s saying. He’s saying basically the whole point about science as he defines it. That is is that it doesn’t matter who’s got an idea that’s against common sense. It doesn’t matter because that actually underlines what science is all about. And he went on later to say, well, it doesn’t matter if things look as if they’re designed, it doesn’t matter if it looks as if God has created them. We’ve got an a priori adherence to material causes. We can’t allow that to happen. We can’t go there and even look at that, That’s right. In fact, he even concluded that this particular quote by saying materialism, and by that he means naturalism, moreover, materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door. He was saying, you can’t bring God into the equation. And what’s more, I’ve heard that very same thing with those exact words said by a christian and evangelical, a member of a member of what is probably the largest evangelical church in England saying that because he believes in the theory of evolution, wow, can’t let a divine foot in the door. That’s exactly Dawkins. When you listen to Dawkins, and I know a lot of evolutionist go we don’t like Dawkins, because he admits the truth. If you’re an atheist, if you’re an evolutionist, you’re gonna end up being an atheist is where it naturally leads. But he says all the time, the world looks so incredibly designed. But the genius of science is that we’ve discovered that it’s not, he admits it looks like it is, it looks like there’s a divine creator. But the genius of science is to show that it’s not, it’s incredible, isn’t it? So this is this is what the advantages for them, it means that they don’t have to come face to face with God, but we know what they do, that’s exactly right, sir, Julian Huxley wasn’t that you said. I suppose the reason we all jumped at the origin of species was because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores. They know the real reason they reject the supernatural is because of their lifestyle. My dad is and I say this all the time. The reason people rejects uh God is not because of science. And to reject the bible is not because of science, it’s because of sin. Every single time I worked with a girl this last weekend named Annabelle in the Netherlands, she had an opportunity to give a 20 minute presentation in her class. She started with this quote from Sir Arthur keith, who said evolution is unproven and unprovable. We believe it is only because the only alternative is special creation, which is unthinkable. We cannot allow creation in because let’s admit it. Guys, If we accepted a divine creator, that would mean he owns his creation. If he’s the owner of his creation, he can do with it, what he wants, can’t he? He can put rules down thou shalt and thou shalt not. That means that we might be guilty of breaking his rules. This is where it really gets down to what they don’t want somebody else telling them what to do and what not to do, which is precisely what the apostle paul was saying to the people at mars Hill, this unknown God is the creator. Uh He’s the God who made the world, I know him, he’s the God who made the world and he commands men everywhere to repent. He’s got a case against you and there are several places in the scripture and I jotted a few down here first, Corinthians chapter 2 14. The Natural, the Natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them. They are spiritually discerned. Second Timothy 2 25, God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know truth. You have to repent first before you can come to truth. I love that passage. Um and we know that really we can’t argue anybody into eternity. That is the work of the holy Spirit, that is the job of God. I tried for years to come up with the silver bullet of Creationism that was going to destroy evolution. There really isn’t one and that’s something I’m never going to be talking about quite a lot. We do need to discuss that quite a bit more. That is so true. Well that is our show today, so much more to talk about. We’ll have to do that in the next episode if you’ve got questions. Send them to questions at creation today dot org. You can join us on twitter, you can do at Creation today and you can go onto facebook as well. Facebook dot com forward slash Creation today, We’d like you to tune in each episode to see if we’ve answered your questions. And of course these programs are archived online at Creation today dot org. Well, this has been a production of Creation Science evangelism. Thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you next time. God bless.