BBC bias-more evidence

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Peter Sissons, veteran BBC news anchorman for 25 years is writing his memoirs after recently leaving the BBC. Prior to being 'poached' by them from ITN (Independent Television News) he was already a much loved and respected broadcaster, so we are really talking about a 'big fish' here, whose views in his area of life would carry some weight. An exclusive write up about his concerns and reasons for leaving the BBC was published in the Mail on Sunday of 12th July.



He said he had recently resigned from the BBC and was increasingly disturbed by the politically correct (PC) line the BBC took on a range of matters, and the increasing top-down editorial control imposed on journalists and newsmen. Say the wrong thing, ask the wrong questions, and you are in trouble. It had become clear to him that there was a definite BBC line on a range of issues, and so interviewers (setting aside the way they are chosen in the first place) are much less free to pursue the evidence wherever it went, but only to follow policy. This fits well with my observations of BBC bias: it is interesting to hear this corroborating evidence from a senior BBC man. Incidentally, this story was mentioned on an independent radion station on Monday morning, but not on the BBC radio news.


Climate change-don't mention the problems (*)

On climate change, he wrote the following 'On a wintry saturday last December, there was what was billed as a major climate change rally in London. The leader of the Green Party (of which Dissenter was a member for several years in the 1990s) Caroline Lucas went into the Westminster studio to be interviewed by me (Sissons) on the BBC news channel. She clearly expected what I call a 'Free Hit', to be allowed to voice her views without being challenged on them.

Blasphemy!

Sissons continued...'I pointed out to her that the climate didn't seem to be playing ball at the moment. We were having a particularly cold winter, even though carbon dioxide emissions were increasing. Indeed, there had been no warming for ten years, contradicting all the alarming computer predictions.


Well, she was outraged. I don't have the actual transcript, but Miss Lucas told me angrily that it was disgraceful that the BBC-the BBC!-should be giving any kind of publicity to those sort of views. I believe I am one of a tiny number of BBC intervieweers who have so much as raised the possibility that there is another side to the debate on climate change.

The Corporation's most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that 'the science is settled', when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn't.

But it is effectively BBC policy, enthusiastically carried out by the BBC environment correspondents, that those views should not be heard-witness the BBC statement last year that 'BBC News currently takes the view that their reporting needs to be calibrated to take into account the scientific consensus that global warming is man made.'

Politically the argument may be settled, but any inquisitive journalist can find ample evidence that scientifically it is not. (exactly the same could be said for many key aspects of the science around evolution-Dissenter) I was not proud to be working for an organisation with a corporate mind so closed on such an important issue. ..For me, this is not an issue about the climate, it is an issue about the duty of a journalist.....The truth of the matter is that for all the above reasons, I was no longer comfortable at BBC news.'

News management

Peter Sissons referred to behind the scenes manipulation of the reporting of several other news items he had been involved in, including the death of the Queen Mother and an interview with Harriet Harman, and gave ample evidence of shenanigans at the BBC which are nothing to do with balance, a disinterested search for truth or following the evidence wherever it leads but with a top-down political agenda by a motivated elite. Thanks for your honesty Peter, although I dare say at your stage in a long and distinguished career, you can afford to walk away and tell it like it is, and perhaps make some money on the telling of the tale. Of course we must ask, what about all the other BBC workers lower down the food chain who wouldn't dare ask the wrong questions?


1984 or Brave New World, or both?

Sissons finished by mentioning those 2 famous dystopian visions of a future Britain, George Orwell's '1984' and Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'. In the former book, we saw a vision of a totalitarian Britain not unlike Stalin's Russia, whereas Huxley imagined a people who on the face of it were relatively free, but who were so overwhelmed by sex, drugs and trivia that the State didn't need to ban them from thinking for themselves (as in Orwell's dystopican vision) as they had forgotten how to.

I think of a cartoon I saw in Private Eye recently of a mother comforting a disturbed 12 year old girl saying 'Don't worry darling, it's called a thought. It'll go away as soon as we've fixed your Ipod.'


Sissons suggested that we were some way towards Huxley's vision, with wall to wall reporting of 'celebrity' culture drowning out real news and analysis. I tend to agree, but would also say that a great deal of Orwell's vision is there too, with the thought police and Big Brother. And let's not forget that there was a thought police in Brave New World too, at the end of which book we find a few independent thinkers being banished to an island where they could not contaminate the 'dreamtime' of the masses whose minds were happily pacified by the junk the state saw fit to feed them. It struck me as ironic that a contestant on the deplorable junk TV production 'Big Brother' had no idea where the title of the so-called 'reality' TV show came from. In case anyone reading this doesn't its the 'big boss man' who watches you through CCTV and tells you what to think-or else-in 1984.


Labour bashes independent education


As a minor postscript, I heard on the radio an hour ago a leader of the charities commission (Dame Suzie Leather, a Labour party member) defending her decision to deprive 2 schools of charitable status on grounds to do with how many free places they were providing. She refused to say how many places would be sufficient. When it was pointed out to her that parents who chose to educate their children independently were entitled to free state school places and by not using them were saving the taxpayer £3 billion pounds per annum and so it was reasonable that private schools should have charitable status, she rejected this argument out of hand. She said that you might as well say that users of privately owned cars should be rewarded because they were not using public transport.


The stupidity and arrogance of this statement is flabbergasting. All UK children whether their parents ever paid a penny of income tax or not are entitled to a free state education. There is no comparable entitlement to free public transport, so her comparison breaks down completely. This sounds like prejudice against independent schools-the interviewer gave her a fairly easy ride, expressing without qualification that some people thought independent schools 'a bad thing'. How can it be a bad thing for children to go to school? What bizzare, unchallenged assumptions form the background to such discussions.


Who guards the guardians?


If I had time and energy, I could attempt to discover what services Labour supporter Dame Suzy Leather has performed, and to whom, for her to have been made a Dame and given a powerful position on a Quango which makes fateful decisions about independent schools. Of course, I would not be able to discover the content of any conversations which had taken place in private, and would not dream of making any specific allegation beyond what is in the public realm, but it is widely believed (rightly or wrongly) that favours are given for favours as far as honours and senior positions in public bodies are concerned. People do not generally bite the hand that feeds them and one can only wonder at the relationship between the person granted honour and position and the politician who bestowed the favours.


It is a matter of public record that socialists hate independent schools, citing 'elitism' although are often willing to get their children into independent or quasi-independent schools if they can get away with it. Perhaps it is independent thought itself they hate, and wish to abolish so they can govern us ever more throughly. For our own good, of course.


(*) as I wrote before, I do not have strong or unduly contrary views on climate change and strive for a low carbon footprint and give regularly to third world development charities. I note however that not all the evidence is one way, and that climate change dissent is being suppressed, as the threat is being used for political ends.

Pearls before swine?

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Another case of 'idea triangulation', the seeming co-incidence of several thoughts which came at me from different sources over a short period of time and chimed together. I believe co-incidences do occur, and of course we often see what we are looking for, but I also believe in the guidance of God. In any event, when I come across several thoughts, events or ideas with a similar theme, this often causes me to reflect and perhaps write something, for what its worth.


The theme is that whether or not every argument is worth having, certainly some people in some moods are not worth arguing with. That does not mean that they are people for who one should have no respect, hope or concern, just that it isn't a good use of time to engage with closed, mischevious or hateful minds, at any rate unless and until they have a changce of heart. But then again, how and why do people have changes of heart or mind? That is a mystery with which I grapple with little success.


Yesterday I clicked on one of my the links from this blog to Denise O Leary's 'Post Darwinist' blog to see what her latest story 'caution strong language' was about, and discovered some vile abuse which although no surprise had the power to sadden, if not shock. Denise and another female blogger had been the subjects of repeated abuse from an anonymous blogger including use of the 'c' word, slang for the female external genitalia. Now even setting aside the use of any insult in a debate about human origins, this use of language is sad, because we are all born of women, and those of us who are married men (and of course many men who are not) have enjoyed sexual love with our wives involving that part of a woman's delightful body. Using a female specific sex word as a curse is not just bad manners, but also curses your mother, your birth, and your lover. Calling somebody a liar, a thief or a fool is offensive for sure, but may be legitimate if the charge can be proven. Calling somebody whose views you oppose a c*** is to tell the world that you are a vulgar, disrespectful misogynist who is probably shouting louder having lost the argument.


The anonymous hater in this case, who also had the cheek to complain about Christian bloggers 'uncourageously' (!?! and this from an anony-mouse!?!) blocking comments (thus denying him the right to post foul personal abuse of a sexual nature) also used the classic atheist rant of saying 'go and read a science book' without specifying which book or argument he had in mind. The reason why Denise O'Leary, Vij Sodera, Andrew Sibley, myself and many others publish dissent from Darwin is that we HAVE read some science books and we disagree with the arguments for evolution. But the committed atheistic evolutionist can hardly acknowledge this or they might have to think about changing their minds.


By all means click on the link to the post-darwinist blog to read the foul curses of an atheist, I'm not pasting any of it, but it's worse than anything posted here, misogyny I suppose. Of course not all atheists are like that, Theodore Dalrymple for example writes with courtesy, insight and beauty on a wide range of matters, but then he is the sort of atheist who is content to let the God in whom he has no faith be, unike the sort of atheist who, as CS Lewis writes, wants to destroy Christianity. Dalrymple has also writtens on Dawkin's fundamentalism, the decline of our culture and has noted the comforts and morality which Christianity has given, I have some hope for him.


I have just been re-reading Mattthew's Gospel and C S Lewis's book , Mere Christianity' and found the following thoughts about declining to engage with people who aren't listening but just want to wear you out.


In 'Mere Christianity' page 41 (Harper Collins 50th aniversary edition) CSL writes 'Very often, however, this silly procedure is used by people who are not silly, but who, consciously or unconsciously, want to destroy Christianity. Such people put up a version of Christianity suitable for a child of six and make that the object of their attack. When you try to explain the Christian doctrine as it is held by an instructed adult, they then complain that you are making their heads turn round and that it is all too complicated and that if there really were a God they are sure He would have made 'religion' simple, because simplicity is so beautiful, etc. You must be on your guard against these people for they will change their ground every minute and only waste your time (my emphasis-Dissenter). Notice too, their idea of God 'making religion simple' as if 'religion' were something God invented, and not His statement to us of certain quite unalterable facts about His own nature.'

Quite so.


And finally I read in Matthew chapter 7 verse 6 'Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.' A few verses earlier, Jesus was telling his disciples that they should expect to be hated for his sake, but would receive a reward if they endured the abuse. However, he makes it clear here (and elsewhere) that there was no obligation to engage with hostile, closed minded people.


The world wide web, especially with anonymity, makes it possible to insult total strangers with impunity. This is probably inseparable from the opportunity it gives us to tell our stories, including stories like the one about The Darwinian emperor's nakedness, which are denied a platform in the mainstream media. One has to take the rough with the smooth to some extent, but there is a limit. The tactic of posting distractions, irrelevancies and abuse, and then accusing your opponent of 'running away' when they choose not to engage with circular and irrelevant arguments is childish. It reminds me of the vulgar phrase 'Don't piss down my back and then tell me its raining' although maybe there's a better metaphor for the tactic.

But Jesus himself (never mind CS Lewis) said that some people were a waste of time debating with, so that's good enough for me. Opponents and others can still read what is written, and misrepresent and abuse-or even think about and legitimately criticise it- to their heart's content on their own blogs. Or they can even go read a science book, and once again I recommend Michael Behe's latest book 'The Edge of Evolution', John Sanford's book 'Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome' and Vij Sodera's magisterial multi-layered demolition of Evolutionism 'One Small Speck to Man; The Evolution Myth'.

Faith, reason, political correctness and the BBC

Away in Looe, Cornwall for a family holiday and some time for reflection and reading. I'm reading a Civitas pamphlet by journalist Anthony Browne, 'The Retreat of Reason' which considers the phenomenon known by its detractors as political correctness (PC) and believed on by those who impose it as received, self evident and non-negotiable truth and justice. Interesting writing from someone who does not take a Christian viewpoint, but recognises in PC the kind of thought control associated with communism (or one might add, theocracy.)

He started writing this after an interview he gave the BBC radio 4 Today programme was dropped for being politically incorrect, although the facts were right. It concerned an epidemic of 1,000 or so cases of imported heterosexual HIV (from African immigrants, whose numbers had rocketed since the New Labour victory of 1997). He details the facts, which were quite at odds with the official story that heterosexual HIV was due to UK born teenagers having unsafe sex, and the vile personal abuse and ostracism he received for drawing attention to them.

It is noteworthy that Mr Browne describes himself as a liberal on matters of personal sexual behaviour, certainly no racist, but was viciously attacked by liberal newspapers. He details a particularly fierce ad hominem attack from 'Independent' journalist Yasmin Alabiah Brown. I won't detail the whole 'Retreat of Reason' pamphlet, but I agree with A C Grayling and several other reviewers that it's worth a read and I'll quote more from it in a later post.

Another 'inconvenient truth' he noted was the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in recent years, officially attributed to BNP supporting white skinheads, but in fact the actual evidence shows down to Muslim youths. This is something else which the liberal-left elites don't want us to know because it conflicts with the world as they would prefer it to be. Facts that prick their bubble are buried by a pervasive PC thought and speech censorship. Browne describes the vast army of think-tanks, 'charities' and single issue pressure groups, many of them taxpayer funded, (funding which depends on their taking a PC line) that makes it increasingly difficult to draw attention to politically incorrect truths in Britain today. Browne shows clearly that free speech is under serious threat in a way not seen in our lifetimes, and our relative prosperity and decadence tend to make us realxed about it.

Of course I have often drawn attention to the BBC's denial of legitimate questioning and criticism of Darwinism while (for example) regularly feeding us absurd speculation about extra terrestrial life whenever someone thinks they have detected a wobble in a distant star which might mean there's a planet near it. The BBC lives and breathes political correctness, or as I have heard it called, received left thinking. This would not matter so much if it were not for their pervasive, near-monopolistic taxpayer funded status regarding serious broadcast news and comment, which makes them probably Britain's key opinion former. They are obliged to be objective, balanced and fair, but they are not when it comes to evolution and Biblical Christianity. Of course they do make room for a little 'Christianity Lite' as window dressing.

Yesterday morning I listened to 'Start The Week' with Andrew Marr. I forget the names of all the contributors and can't get 'listen again' on the sluggish wireless laptop connection from my holiday apartment, but they included ex-nun Karen Armstrong, writer Arundati Roy, and 2 men one of whom was talking about a book on demographics and population. He made the point that this was an issue that Europe was not taking seriously enough because of its uncomfortable implications (I tend to agree, miserable old doom-monger that I am). Arundati Roy was talking about mineral extraction rights, poverty, environmental and other issues in India, also interesting and relevant.

As usual, each person had their say about their book or work and others asked polite, informed, interested questions. Until that is they came to Karen Armstrong, when the tone changed and people became very dismissive and verging on aggressive. Even though she said 'God is not a fact' her latest book 'searching for God ' (as I recal, unable to listen again as I said) was about possible benefits of faith. Of course, the official PC line, taken by most chosen BBC intellectuals not to mention presenters like the committed Darwin promoter Marr, is that faith and reason are irreconcilable opposites so ya boo and snubs to any 'mumbo jumbo' and down with faith, hoorah for reason. The other 3 panel members quickly dismissed Armstrong's ideas without giving them much of a hearing. Just the sort of thing, in not such a different context, Anthony Browne was writing about.

I can't have too much sympathy since Armstrong has evidently abandoned the historic Christian faith and has apparently yet to take in the reflex negativity ( her word was belligerence) which is directed by true believers in the god 'reason' (however unreasonable they are) against any mind set other than materialism. She seems to be trying to hold on to, even promote, the benefits of religion without accepting the prophetic, miraculous, historic, crucified, risen and ascended Christ, and got only a slightly milder kicking than I would have got. All she was trying to say as far as I could tell was that faith might have some benefits. The only reaction she got was the Christopher Hitchens line that any good deed which might be done by a 'person of faith' could equally well be done by a person without faith. Ah yes, but there is quite a subtle, teensy-weensy little difference between 'could do' and 'does do', not to mention the fact that not all faiths, including the many faiths that o under the rag-bag label of 'rationalism' or 'reason' are the same, and nor are their adherents. But then, if we started looking at the actual historic track record of Christianity in inspiring and carrying out philanthropism, healthcare, education (what about all those church schools atheists pretend to be Christians to get their kids into, as I heard on the radio again only 2 days ago?) comparing it with the record of other belief systems, we might be entering a distinctly non-PC area. The facts might point to unacceptable conclusions. No, the BBC PC way of dealing with the idea that Christian faith might be true is silence with slogans, keep them simple, repeat them often.

Perhaps Karen Armstrong's 'journey' will lead her to end up converting to Islam. As Anthony Browne says, it is not politically correct to attack Islam. The latter is a curious fact since Islam has all the things about it which secularists hate about Christianity (and then some!!!), and in a stronger and less negotiable form.

Which takes me back to my other holiday reading, the great Christian apologist C S Lewis. I am reading part 2 of his collected letters, and 'Mere Christianity'. The interesting thing which ties the above reflections together is that during the Hitler War, Lewis was asked by the BBC to give a series of radio talks on faith and reason. I am reading some of the correspondence between him and the BBC about the talks just now. The talks were well received, generating an enormous correspondence, and became the book Mere Christianity.

This book was of great comfort and encouragement to me as a young Christian at university, arguing as it does so effectively why it is rational to accept the historic Christian faith. I could never have become, nor could I remain, a Christian if it violated reason, but it does not, and it is quite possible to explain why this is so if people are listening carefully and not shouting you down with slogans and cliches which prevent engagement with the facts and arguments. Of course, C S Lewis was a remarkable intellect and communicator and I doubt if we will see his like again, but the point is that it would be unthinkable today for an intellectual Christian who actually believed that Christianity was true to be asked, or allowed, to give a series of talks on faith and reason. Instead we get the ex-nun Karen Armstrong making a very mild defence of some sort of watered down version, and being slapped down with slogans like 'reason, not faith'. One of her opponents said that religion should not be respected just because it is religion' OK, but if we unpackand examine that assertion we might have to ask if there were other viewpoints which were above criticism, whether they are labelled 'faith' or not, and indeed some religions are protected from criticism in a way that others are not. The point is that people ought to be respected, so their thoughts ought to be listended to and reasoned about before being slapped down.

Which brings me back to Anthony Browne's essay about how Political Correct thinking is suffocating freedom of speech, making certain facts and opinions unsayable and certain beliefs above criticism or even examination, and that this isn't just an annoyance but a real threat to freedom and prosperity. He and other liberal commentators such as the atheist Theodore Dalrymple know that something is going badly wrong with our culture, but they can't make the connection between the downfall of Christian Britain and the rise of the new PC totalitarianism of thought which is developing alongside radical Islam, which it refuses to challenge since 'the enemy of my enemy (Christian western culture) is my friend'.

Don't take my word for it, read 'The retreat of Reason' . If you excise his specific concerns and replace them with mine, parts of this booklet concerning well-organised suppression of certain thoughts and facts could have been written by a creationist about the BBC's Darwin season which excluded all mention of the scientific criticisms or even religious objections to it (as I posted at teh time, numerous religious commentators were brought on to praise Darwin, none to question him. pure PC bias), although Mr Browne might not thank me for saying so. He quoted someone saying that Dissenters (thanks for the name check) can expect to be vigorously challenged, as dissenters always are, but in todays's PC climate they can also expect to be called wicked and stupid if they transgress oficial received opinions. Dead right there mate.

Those with eyes to see are beginning to worry about the survival of western values, in Britain at least, if we are no longer able to speak, think or question freely. And with the mainstream church too busy keeping her head down, preachning the Gospel and of course providing sought-after education and other social goods, to have seriously criticised the rise of PC, now some of the less embittered atheists are beginning to speak up about the erosion of our liberties. Could it be that what we think of as our 'enlightened' western civilisation depends more on the right kind of faith-historic Christianity- than was assumed when our great liberal-left 'permissive' experiment was begun some 40 years ago?

Joni Mitchell was rigth bout one thing at least, 'Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?'

http://www.questiondarwin.com

C S Lewis creationist themed space opera at Oxford

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I have enjoyed the writing of C S Lewis work since I first read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I would have been around 11 or 12. I next came across his Screwtape letters, letters from a senior to a junior devil about how to make men go wrong, when an English teacher read some to my class, I would have been around 15. I also first came across his science fiction trilogy at school, and probably these are my favourites. His apologetics, particularly Mere Christianity, were of inestimable value to me as a young Christian at university, who was seized with faith but needed reason too. Lewis provided.

Over the years, my wife Julia and I have literally read many of Lewis' books until they fell apart, so I was amazed and delighted to learn earlier in 2009 that the second of the sci-fi trilogy, Perelandra or Voyage to Venus, had been made into an opera which was to be performed at Oxford this June. Better still, the Oxford C S Lewis society had organised an international colloquium with presentation of papers on different aspects of the book. I booked a place ASAP and started work on a paper of my own, looking at creation and evolution in the book, but wasn’t happy with it and did not submit it. Never mind, another time, and maybe I'll even expand it into a book.

I have just returned from a wonderful weekend in Oxford. The conference was held at St Stephen’s house, an Anglican training centre, with some 50 delegates. Many had come from America, where Lewis is very big and several scintillating papers were presented on subjects ranging from Lewis’s 24 year correspondence with an Anglican nun who was also a writer (sister Penelope), Christian environmentalism in Perelandra, a re-think on Lewis’ views on gender, the influence of mediaeval astronomy/astrology on Lewis’ thought, and the influence of other sci-fi works on Lewis.

I met and listened to some truly likeable people including Walter Hooper, Lewis's personal secretary who told us some tales of the man himself, including his self-effacing charitable nature, half a dozen professors, several authors including Will Vaus, CSL enthusiast from North Dakota whose book ‘the professor of Narnia’ I have just finished, I can’t wait to get hold of his ‘Mere theology’, and other dear friends from the USA and elsewhere whose company and wise and gentle speech I will remember with pleasure. As we heard on an Inklings (*) tour of Oxford, Lewis once said ‘Christians never say goodbye.’

For those who are not familiar with Perelandra, without spoiling the plot I can say that the hero, a Cambridge philologist called Elwin Ransom who has previously been to Mars, is taken by angels to Venus where he discovers an unspoiled paradise world with just 2 inhabitants, the Green Lady and her husband (who for the moment is missing). They enjoy an unbroken relationship with the Creator, who has given them the planet but forbidden them to sleep on the fixed land (they live on floating islands which supply all their needs). A tempter then turns up in the form of Professor Weston, whom we know from the first book of the trilogy, who tries to persuade the lady to disobey the command she has received. Ransom tries to persuade her to remain obedient. To say much more would spoil the plot.

The story is evidently based on the story of Adam and Eve and the serpent, and Lewis uses it (as good sci-fi and fantasy should be used) to explore various mythological, theological, moral, psychological and other themes. Creating, as it were, a new world in order to view our own through fresh eyes. As one of the conference organisers said, it is a testimony to Lewis’ brilliance that so many well written papers had been presented on different themes taken from the book without coming close to exhausting its rich vein of ideas. Anyway, to the opera.

Perelandra, the opera, was written by Donald Swann, of Flanders and Swann, and David Marsh in collaboration with C S Lewis, but only performed 4 times before copyright issues relating to C S Lewis’s death shortly before the first performance prevented further performances. Basically, Hollywood bought the film rights and then sat on them for 40 years. There were also other problems, a 'rough' orchestral performance, and some dissapointing reviews-some no doubt from snobbery (who does this ****** comedian think he is trying to write serious opera?) and as Swann's musical style was out of fashion almost as much as Lewis's Christianity. Also, at three and a half hours, it was just too long. Altogether, the various difficulties which hit the opera meant that it sank almost without trace. There was a temporary student revival of it in the USA in 1969 before film rights issues again prevented performance.

A determined effort co-ordinated by the C S Lewis society of Oxford university and various friends and well wishers led to a production of the opera being performed at Keble College and the Sheldonian theatre, a marvellous Christopher Wren building in which Handel had played. I attended the Sheldonian (picture above) on Saturday. It was not quite a sell out with maybe 500 people present. There was no live action or costume, the parts were sung with the accompaniment of a medium sized orchestra and chorus of 20.

I am not qualified to comment on opera, but I really liked it, there were no bad bits, the music was lovely with appropriate changes of volume, pace and mood to fit the libretto. Lovely horns. Imaginative and different use of the chorus, appropriate spoken narrative to set scenes. Parts of it made really excellent drama. Not a million miles from Handel, says he at the risk of sniggers.

A post-production discussion with the organisers and baritone Leon Berger (who sang the part of Weston, brilliantly, and is the archivist of the Donald Swann estate) at the colloquium next morning produced a general opinion that the work was marvellous but in need of some tidying up and shortening before it would likely be more widely performed. A recording was made, mainly as an archive, but there seems to be an appetite for a CD. Further news will no doubt emerge in time from Judith Tonning of the Oxford C S Lewis society and the Perelandra project, whose web site can be found http://www.perelandraproject.org/ here.

I noticed the Telegraph writer Christopher Howse at the performance ( I woudl particularly like to salute him at the start of National Beard Week!) and had a quick chat afterwards. He posted something about the opera which I checked at the Telegraph on line, and already there were 3 negative comments posted, by people who very evidently cannot have seen the opera, but were basically blasting it because it was C S Lewis. It is very clear that the enemies of the Christian faith hate C S Lewis, of course they say it is because he is derivative, boring, hypocritical, 'allegorical' etc etc, but really I think they deride him because he was such so good at expounding the Christian faith, exposing the weakness of the arguments most often used against it, and showing people why it made sense to believe in Jesus. The continued loathing of these people for all things Lewis is a good sign.

I wish every success to the opera, although I fear that for various reasons it has a rocky uphill road to travel. It was always an extremely ambitious project, had catastrophically bad luck from day 1, and as Leon pointed out, a piece of work like this would normally have been revised by the creators in response to criticism, but the copyright hang-ups and CSL’s badly timed death (if only he’d taken his doctor’s advice and given up smoking!) prevented this normal artistic revising process going on. We also heard that the music was too tuneful for contemporary operatic tastes, which prefers discords. And then of course there is the not merely Christian, but creationist aspects of it, plus the depiction of Satan as a real individual who hates us and has a miserable plan for our lives which depends on deception. The Usual Suspects don’t like that kind of storyline, so although this would be an ideal production for the BBC proms, that avenue may be closed. Worth trying though, when one considers how much of a stalwart and popular broadcaster CSL was on the BBC during the Hitler war.

I’ll post further reflections on Perelandra, creation and the colloquium when I have time to put them together, but probably not until after a much needed family seaside holiday.

PS favourite Lewis quote from the weekend-Walter Hooper said he saw Lewis give some money to a beggar ouside the Lamb and Flag pub (opposite the Eagle and Child wher ethey more usually met). Hooper remonstrated and said 'He'll probably spend it on drink!' Lewis replied, 'well, if I kept the money I'd probably spend it on drink too.'

(*) the Inklings were a group of Oxford-based literary friends including Lewis and Tolkein who used to meet in the pub and discuss their work in progress

BBC space patrol-the continuing mission to obfuscate the laws of biogenesis and information

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Another far fetched ‘evidence of life on another planet’ story being plugged and hyped by the BBC. I have written on this so many times before, but then the essence of this kind of propaganda is endless repetition until the misrepresentation becomes plausible through familiarity, until the speculation becomes fact in the mind of the listener. This is one of Evolutionism’s key strategies, not so much to persuade as to pervade. Where the deception is repeated often, the rebuttal needs repeating however boring it gets.

This time it’s a moon of Saturn called Enceladus. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8115148.stm, where we read..

''Scientists tell Nature magazine that the liquid water may reside in caverns just below the surface of the moon.
If confirmed, it is a stunning result. It means the Saturnian satellite may be one of the most promising places in the Solar System to search for signs of extraterrestrial life. ''


The NASA probe Cassini has apparently discovered sodium in a plume above the moon. That's it, that's the whole of the reality behind the speculation. We are told the most likely source of this is an underground ocean. So given our underground ocean, probably life may well have arisen since the 2 ingredients necessary for life to arise (said the science reporter on the Today programme at 06.55 today), are water and energy. The presenter allowed the science reporter to repeat all this speculation as fact while supporting him with loaded questions (which were in fact statements) like ‘so we can expect some news soon?’ Yes! Isn’t it exciting! Soon we’ll have the definite evidence that we are not alone on the universe! This assertion is utterly false but is given credence by endless repetition. The picture above is an artist's impression of what the ocean on Enceladus might look like, very fitting since the whole of evolutionism is more artist's impression that demonstrable fact.

Evolutionism predicts that life arises spontaneously given liquid water and time. Never mind that all the facts are against this, just keep repeating the assertion, never allow a sceptic to draw attention to inconvenient facts, and an impression is created that all the scientists are agreed, therefore its true. There is no other area of enquiry where such wild speculation would be repeated so often or given such an easy ride. The way they present these stories is always the same, excited joy with no sceptical questions.

The reporter said that the origin of life requires only 2 ingredients, water and energy, the item on the BBC web site says ‘building blocks of life’ are also necessary. But this is speculation way past the evidence, building castles in the air to support a pre-existing conclusion which is sacred to materialists. It is a scientific law that life only ever arises from life-there are no exceptions to the law of biogenesis, nor any credible theory as to how life could arise other than from an intelligent source. So we are asked to suspend belief in 2 well founded scientific laws (abiogenesis and intelligent source for information) on the basis of a pinch of salt!

The smallest life form contains highly complex, specified information (on DNA) in a more compact form than any human technology can dream of producing. New discoveries are revealing that the DNA’s actions are even more complex than we realised, since the DNA can be read in more than one way, with genes acting in concert and multi-tasking so that even more can be achieved with relatively few genes. It is also a law of science that information only ever arises from an intelligent source. There is no incidence of information arising from a non-intelligent source, no credible theory as to how it could. This knowledge is deliberately excluded from discussion by the pro-evolution BBC.

It is astonishing that they feel free to speculate that the presence of salt, one of the simplest chemicals, in a gaseous plume above an inhospitable moon, is enough to get us all excited about extraterrestrial life, but the immeasurably complex coded information in DNA does not count as a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence, even though that Intelligence has also communicated with us through Christ and the prophets.

'This war is just, the bishop said so' (no, he didn't)

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

This post isn't directly to do with evolution, but the unthinking repetition of a popular falsehood which is assumed to be true, and then by constant repetition, becomes 'true' in people's minds. Which as I have argued, is how evolution becomes 'true'.


Visiting London for a meeting today, I dropped into Hobgoblin music shop off Tottenham Court Road to buy a ukulele. I had a look at the books downstairs and came across a collection of songs by a man called Leon Rosselon, of whom I hadn’t heard before. Flicking though the book, the themes and style seemed quite familiar, mainly anti-war, anti-racism etc. Anyhow, my attention was caught by a couple of lines in an anti-Iraq war song called,

‘General Lockjaw briefs the British press’

Having sworn the war was not about oil, the General sings

‘This war is just, the bishop said so.’


I remembered that the leaders of the British Anglican, Catholic, Evangelical and liberal churches had all but universally opposed the invasion of Iraq. I am sure I have blogged on this before, with my tongue firmly in my cheek saying what a pity Britain wasn’t a theocracy, since then we wouldn’t have entered this disastrous, costly and wicked war. (In fact, I don’t want Britain to be a theocracy. As C S Lewis wrote, this is a terrible form of government since if men believe that the Almighty has mandated them to rule harshly, they will carry out all sorts of horrors and mistake any tendency to compassion for temptation and apostasy and behave all the more harshly, like the Taliban. Nevertheless, I think this is a telling historical fact-if the government had listened to the Christian leaders, on this and on many other matters, we would all have been much better off. )

Anyway, back to the songwriter Mr Rosselon, who wrote


‘This war is just, the bishop said so.’

He didn’t say which bishop he meant, but I Googled on Iraq + war +bishop and quickly found the following story in the Times


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article568292.ece


From which I quote the following

>>>>BISHOPS of the Church of England want all Britain’s Christian leaders to get together in public to say sorry for the war in Iraq and its aftermath.

The bishops say that the Government is not likely to show remorse so the churches should. They want to organise a major gathering with senior figures from the Muslim community to make a “public act of repentance

The bishops, who strongly opposed the war in Iraq, want Christian leaders to express their repentance in an “act of truth and reconciliation” for the West’s contribution to the problems in Iraq.

The bishops cite a “long litany” of errors in the West’s handling of Iraq, including its past support for Saddam Hussein, its willingness to sell him weapons and the suffering caused to the Iraqi people by sanctions.<<< So my memory didn’t deceive me, the bishops said ‘this war is NOT just’. And history proved them right. So what is the songwriter playing at? I’m not calling him a liar (although his statement is a lie) because many people are so brainwashed by the anti-Christian propaganda whcih pervades our society that he probably believed that ’the bishop’ had in fact supported the war. Perhaps he felt so strongly, 'knew deep down' that that was how bishops behaved, that he didn’t need to examine the facts, since ‘Everyone knows all the wars in the world are caused by religion’. This sort of brainwashing happens quite a lot, and certainly in the minds of the 50% or so of the population who accept Darwinian evolutionism on the say-so of experts although they couldn’t answer many questions about why they believe it.


I do not know if Mr Rosselon is a popular writer, perhaps hardly anyone has heard this song sung, but the point is that he has made a key statement in a political song which seriously slanders Christians and is not just wrong, but the exact opposite of the truth. Our society is suffused with a steady drip feed of such assertions and comments which tend to create a hostile impression of Christianity and Christians which is based on misrepresentation. This is not to say that ‘The Bishops’ are always right, but on this occasion they were certainly right and did their best to give a moral lead, which the politicians rejected.


Mr Rosselon did well to avoid naming a particular bishop, for then he could have been sued for libel, but general smears and slurs against Christians are not actionable, so can be made without fear of consequence. This might seem an incredibly trivial thing to post a blog about, but it’s the thought that counts. My church, the Church of England, spoke out against the invasion of Iraq, and here is a lefty songwriter saying we supported it. People should be careful about what they allow to go into their heads, and they should be careful about what they put into other peoples’ heads, because a day is coming when we will all give account for our thoughts, words and deeds. Well done the bishops who spoke against the invasion of Iraq.

PS I cannot put my hand on my heart and say with certainty that NO bishop said that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was just, but I do not remember hearing of any such and the leaders of the British church were definitely opposed. This fact can be readily checked.

He who sits in the heavens laughs

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

A report on the BBC links laughter in primates to evidence for ape (or ape like ancestor if you prefer, I know some people are pernickety about such distinctions) to human evolution. Apparently, if you tickle some apes, they laugh. This is considered so support evolution, because we laugh too. No, really.

The report says...>>>>>>One surprising finding was that gorillas and bonobos had bouts of laughter that lasted as much as three times the length of their breathing cycle - suggesting that they exerted some control over their breathing in the process.

Robert Barton, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Durham, called the research "fun, but not all that surprising". He said that there have long been suspicions of a shared evolutionary basis for laughter, in a concept researchers call homology.

"It's widely accepted that these emotional expressions are homologous - people have looked at laughter in social contexts in terms of play faces and vocalisations, but no-one has worked specifically on tickle-induced laughter before.

"It's certainly less surprising than the alternative, which would be that it evolved separately and independently in each group," he told BBC News. <<<<

But why not 'homology', with a Creator in whose image we are made? This is the real 'alternative' which is always assumed to be unworthy of consideration. As Psalm 2 says 'He who sits in the heavens laughs'. Read the whole psalm for the context-God laughs at arrogant, foolish men who seek to reject His rule, and warns them to 'pay homage to the Son' while there is still time.

Homology is selective, circular, unfalsifiable and wholly ineffective evidence for evolution. There are only so many ways to make practical structures like a limb, eye, bone, lung or haemoglobin. There is only one way we know of to write genetic code. Homology exists throughout the living natural world, just as does oxygen and carbon. Many man made structures have (for example) wheels, but they didn't evolve from each other-they were designed, with the designers using a wheel where necessary. Finding similar structures in different things does not support common descent more than it supports common design. Oh sorry I forgot, common design is ruled out on a priori philosophical grounds.

The establishment continues to follow Darwin's example by steadily drip-feeding us banal science facts which are incorrectly claimed to support evolution when they don't really, while ignoring other facts that are problematic for evolution. Examples of ignored or suppressed evidence include the Schweitzer dinosaur bone soft tissue, irreducible complexity, sudden appearance and stasis in the fossil record, uselesness of intermediate structures, genetic entropy etc. That way, over the years, the assertion that 'all the evidence supports evolution' becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, because of the careful selection of what evidence we are allowed to hear and what slant is put on it. Its called spin, or propaganda. Obviously it works, or people in power wouldn't do it.

Soft tissue and protein in dinosaur bones

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

The image shows soft tissue found inside a fossilised dinosaur bone. This ought not to be possible if the bone is really tens of millions of years old.

Mary Schweitzer's research contiues to challenge very old age assumptions concerning dinosaurs. Click on the link below for more details.

I am still waiting for the mainstream media to cover this story, which has far greater implications then the German lemur fossil. However, a decision has been made to magnify one story and ignore the other.

Interesting juxtaposition with the discussion in Peter Hitchens' 'Broken Compass' about how a powerful elite decides which stories are going to be in the news, which stories AREN'T, which stories will be repeated endlessly and hyped beyond all proportion.

As an example of the latter, what is all this about MP's expenses? Peanuts! What about the £12.7 billion so far wasted on the NHS computer record system that almost nobody wants and doesn't work?

We keep hearing about stories, like the lemur fossil, which supposedly support evolution, we hear nothing about the story of soft tissue and protein in a supposedly 63 million year old fossil, which could potentially up-end everything they ever told us about the age of the earth. Who decides which stories sink and which swim?

http://creation.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue-and-proteineven-more-confirmation

Jottings and links

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

Having mused a bit on this blog, I have decided to keep it up but with less frequent posts and a slightly broader focus. Blocking comments allows me to be less confrontational and defensive, besides which I really object to being called a liar for expressing an unorthodox view, a coward for not engaging with endless churning, and ignorant for free thinking outside the box, etc, etc. They can still call me names, but I don't have to listen or engage with haters-I am here to put thoughts into the blogosphere which may be of use to the unsettled, militant Christian remnant who, if we can't stop our society drifting downstream towards the waterfall and the rocks beneath, at least want to wave, shout and maybe fire a flare or throw some lifejackets.

Just a few notes on current issues and what's going on of note on some of the linked blogs.


I have deleted the last 2 posts I made about the Ruth Padel case; I thought on reflection they added little to what I had already posted, and might appear uncharitable. But what an interesting insight the affair showed into ‘how things are done'? I’d give a case of good red wine to hear what REALLY went on over the brandy at some dinner party table as somebody planned something. Since Ruth Padel did not organise the anonymous backstabbing campaign against her rival Derek Walcott (she said she didn’t and we must accept this), then either someone else organised it, or else, in true Darwinian style, it organised itself! I do not think we will be told.

Conspiracy or co-incidence?

On the subject of conspiracy, I am been reading Peter Hitchens’ new book ‘The Broken Compass’. The former Trotskyite journalist offers fascinating insights on post-60s left wing politics (he was there) and the complicated and unattributable (but undeniable) relationship between journalists, newspaper owners, politicians and the BBC, which, according to him, have been and still are responsible for deciding which news stories are covered (and, more importantly, NOT covered), how they are covered, etc, often via unattributable briefings over expensive boozy lunches. Hitchens was there when it happened and his account is well argued and quite believable.


He makes sense of how popular, robust centre-right Tory leadership candidate David Davis was suddenly and unexpectedly beaten by smarmy, Tony Blair clone, wealthy, Eton-educated PR man David Cameron. He was at the Blackpool conference when the deed was done. All news management by BlackBerrys, selective ‘on message’ reporting-and, above all, an agreement by various powerful parties behind the scenes that Cameron would replace Blair TO ENSURE CONTINUITY with modern post-60’s liberal social and economic consensus policies and prevent the public having the chance to vote for a mainstream party with traditional British Conservative values.


I can hear the jeers already, all I can say is- read Hitchens’ evidence and see if you can come up with a better explanation for the facts he describes. Why are the Guardian and the BBC now in effect supporting David Cameron's Conservative party and have turned against Gordon Brown's Labour party? Is it just because they see which way the wind's blowing and, in the case of the BBC, don't want the licence fee abolished, or is it deeper than that? As he puts it, if the things I describe aren’t conspiracies, they are pretty amazing co-incidences! A gripping read.


Cancer doc blogs about his own cancer


Another site I link to and often read is Mutations of Mortality. This is the blog of Dr Terry Hamblin. A committed Christian, Terry is a retired leukaemia specialist who has published a significant body of work on the subject during his lifetime. Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) has been one of the mainstays of his blog, which attracts an international following from people who experience CLL. Now he is ill himself with cancer and is having chemotherapy. He is bravely and honestly blogging about his experiences, and has written some very moving things about facing his own mortality. There is an excellent essay on the Christian view of suffering he posted recently. I highly commend this blog for its wisdom, humanity and good writing.

Princess Ida

Andrew Sibley and some friends run the Science and Values blog, another link, where the recent fossil lemur pantomime is discussed. Many links from a recent post show the unease which the mainstream evolutionist establishment has about the David Attenborough etc media circus surrounding this well preserved (but otherwise pretty insignificant) little fossil. Attenbrough in his adoration of Darwin has gone well over the top this time and the excessive hype is becoming parody. Its not just creationists who are saying this. The skilfully orchestrated hype is already a bigger story than the fossil.


By the way, on the question of ‘lemur’ versus ‘lemur-like creature’, all I can say is that given the vast range of forms of single living species which we know can interbreed, for example horses, dogs and cyprinid fishes, I don’t see what difference it makes. As Dr Vij Sodera wrote in his ‘One Small Speck to man-the Evolution Myth’ book, if dogs were long extinct and nobody had ever seen one, and we dug up fossil Great Danes and Pekingese dogs, they would probably be exhibited in different rooms at the National History Museum as members of different classes. Even more so if, as usually happens, the whole animal had been imaginatively reconstructed from a few fragments. But the Great Dane and Peke would still be the same species, and only a few dozen generations apart.


To Oxford for C S Lewis conference and opera


Oxford, that centre of influential thought-good and bad- has been in the news a bit lately, and I am off there shortly for a weekend ‘colloquium’ on C S Lewis’s novel ‘Perelandra’ This has been a favourite since I first read it aged 17. Anyway, I recently learned (via the Oxford C S Lewis society) of an opera based on the book, written by Donald Swann (of Flanders and Swann) in collaboration with CSL shortly before his death. After only a handful of performances, the copyright was withdrawn due to someone buying the film rights (Please, will someone serious film the Cosmic Trilogy! But do it right or not at all) and the opera was forgotten. Anyhow, after some decades the issues are resolved enough to allow the opera to be performed, and there are 2 performances in Oxford at the end of June. Depending on the response, it is hoped to revive it, although perhaps revival is too strong a word since it was never really properly launched.


There is also a gathering of international C S Lewis experts and a series of papers on Perelandra. I started to write one but didn’t think it was good enough so didn’t submit it, but may post an improved version of it here later. Depends on any inspiration I may get in Oxford. I look forward to this colloquium, which includes a black tie dinner (I'll wear my famous cheap tuxedo!) in an Oxford college, presentations, morning prayers, and a visit to C S Lewis' Oxford house, The Kilns. I will report back. I have no idea if the opera will be any good, or if I will like it, but I have high hopes.

C S Lewis on evolution?


I am going through my C S Lewis collection with a view to assembling material for a dissertation on his views and reflections on evolution and creation. Perelandra and the other 2 books of the Cosmic Trilogy are an obvious starting place, but I have also found a couple of essays, a poem and several comments and thoughts in letters and diaries etc which show that although far from being a ‘fundamentalist’ , and while admitting limited knowledge of science, Lewis rejected Darwinian philosophy as being not a true reflection of the world we see around us and also as being inconsistent with Christian insights. This ought to be more widely discussed among Christians, for whom Lewis is still-and rightly-the most widely read and best loved apologist. It would be unreasonable to try to posthumously co-opt him as a creationist mascot, but he certainly had Darwinism bang to rights on its anti-Christian essential nature. I believe that a truly significant challenge for creationists today is to wake up the church to see what the true meaning of evolution is for our faith. Dawkins knows this-I only wish Rowan Williams, John Stott, Steve Chalke, Roger Forster, Ann Holt and a few hundred others Christian leaders did. Lewis could help.


Anyhow, enough for now. And I really do think that Ruth Padel is a good poet, even if I prefer Kipling, Belloc, Betjeman, Donne, Hardy and A E Houseman. All of whom had their faults as humans. I equally have my faults, but no poems to set against theirs.

Darwinian poet resigns, Atheist prof dissapointed

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

A C Grayling, professor of philosophy at Birkbeck college Oxford and anti-Christian polemicist, was one of Ruth Padel’s backers (see earlier post). On the radio this morning he expressed his disappointment that Oxford would not after all have its first female poetry professor, after Ms Padel had been forced to resign over what Grayling called the ‘scurrilous’ campaign against her rival for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry, Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. Grayling said she had been right to resign. She has subsequently (as of 14.00) on radio 4 admitted 'a grave error of judgment' but said she had 'done nothing wrong'.


But is Grayling being consistent with his core beliefs in this appeal to ethical behaviour? He is a frequent guest on the BBC. Last Sunday he was on the religious affairs programme ‘Sunday’, attacking Christianity as usual. He said that the ethical teaching of the Christian church had been pinched from the Stoic philosophers of Rome, who had developed it several centuries earlier. I do not have the advantage of Grayling’s philosophical scholarship, I have spent my life studying medical science and you can't do it all, but at the usual risk of being accused ‘who do you think you are to disagree with an expert’ I have to say I find this claim extraordinary.


I have not studied the Roman philosophers but I have studied the Bible, and it is very clear that the moral and ethical teaching of Jesus are a development from and fulfilment of the God-given ethics of the Old Testament. If God has spoken to all men, as the Bible asserts, then of course we will see echoes of the Moral Law-to lesser and greater extents- in all philosophies and creeds, but nowhere is Morality perfected and practiced as in true Christianity. Western 'ethical' secular humanism, in as far as it is ethical, borrows its ethics from Christianity, but as Christian influence declines (not least under the withering assault of men like Grayling) we are running out of accumulated moral capital and the void of 'survival of the fittest' ethics is re-asserting itself This assertion is of course contested by the secular philosophers, but I say-look at the outcomes.


But even if Grayling’s extraordinary claim that Christian ethics were taken from earlier Roman philosophers (surely not influenced by his strong dislike of Christianity?) is anywhere near correct, then we have to ask how and why it was that Christianity actually did spread these beneficent, outward-looking, generous beliefs through the world, as the church undoubtedly has done. Who's even HEARD of the Stoic philosophers apart from the term 'stoical' (meaning 'longsuffering')? OK, Tom Wolfe wrote about them in his novel 'A Man in Full' a decade or so ago, but I don't see the Stoics sueing the church for plagiarism.


Grayling believes that good ethics do not require faith in an ethical God. As an atheist, he has to believe this or disavow ethics altogether. On his web site http://www.acgrayling.com/ there are links to various of his essays, from which I quote the following.



“Can ethics be derived from evolution by natural selection? Given that human beings have evolved by natural selection (with genetic drift and some other factors perhaps assisting), and are ethical creatures, it follows ab esse ad posse that ethics can be derived from evolution by natural selection.”


So, Grayling reasons, we are ethical beings, evolution produced us, therefore evolution produced ethics. I don’t have time before breakfast to unpack all this in depth, but the obvious questions that ask themselves are

1) is evolution a given? (No, it isn't),
2) what does Grayling mean by ethics? and
3) mankind in general does indeed ACKNOWLEDGE ethics, but what about our BEHAVIOUR?


On the last point, it can indeed be argued, as another Oxford don C S Lewis wrote at the start of his book ‘Mere Christianity’ humankind in general does indeed have a strong sense of right and wrong (usually, 'I'm right, you're wrong!), but our ethics (let alone our behaviour) are often corrupt and selfish. Evolutionary philosophy and atheism have no moral absolutes and carry no sanctions for bad behaviour and offer no rewards for selfless behaviour. The only evolutionary reward is survival, the penalty extinction, the only evolutionary ethic is-do whatever you have to do to survive and breed. Dawkins was unable to deal convincingly with this problem 'if no God, then why ethics?', in fact admitted that while he is a Darwinian on a scientific level, he is a ‘cultural Christian’.


Christian charitable organisations like TEAR fund, Christian Aid, CAFOD, Compassion, the Leprosy Mission, Mission Aviation Fellowship (I only mention a few Christian charities which I know well) testify to the fact that a lively faith in Christ does not merely set out selfless and loving ethical values towards others, but motivates and stimulates believers to act these values out.


Padel supporters sent out anonymous dossiers of accusations against Derek Walcot (Nobel Laurreate, aged 79) to hundreds of influential people in Oxford as part of a 'dirty' campaign to advance the interest of their preferred candidate. I maintain that this was normal Darwinian ethics. Padel denies involvement in the dirty campaign, but was forced to admit (after an earlier denial) that she did pass negative information to journalists. I find this unethical, but why would a Darwinian atheist? I find her supporter A C Grayling’s hand wringing about ethics inconsistent with his philosophical Darwinian atheism. He may be, like the professor mentioned in C S Lewis's fictional college of Bracton (That Hideous Strength) someone who would "walk a mile barefoot rather than leave a trivial debt unpaid, while in his lectures denying the possibility of ethics" and he may be-I must assume he is- perfectly innocent and genuinely anguished by this matter, but you can't have it both ways.


I disagree with Grayling's contention that without the Christian Faith we would be just fine, maybe better than we are, ethically. This is wishful thinking and quite inconsistent with the observed facts about how men and women behave with and (sadly) without Christ. The editorial writers of the Daily Mail and the Express, even the Sun, are closer to the truth than many Oxford professors, as they chronicle the lives, not of our opinion-forming poets and philosophers, but of council estate dwellers as they act out the hedonistic, Christ-rejecting philosophies of D H Lawrence, John Mortimer, John Lennon and the rest of them. Read Theodore Dalrymple/Anthony Daniels (my favourite atheist writer) for the real truth about our cultural decline. The Bible writers are even closer, who wrote ‘in the last days will come times of stress, as men will become haters of God and lovers of self. Evil men will go from bad to worse’. (I paraphrase-Dissenter) . Our society is descending into a post-Christian ethic, and for those with eyes to see, this is not a matter of celebration.

Atheist nuke threatens Japan, South Korea

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

North Korea has exploded another nuclear device, much larger than their first. Japan and South Korea are very worried, not least since the communist dictatorship has successfully tested medium range ballistic missiles capable of hitting both states. What's their game?

Atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote about North Korea http://www.slate.com/id/2117846

“In North Korea, every person is property and is owned by a small and mad family with hereditary power. Every minute of every day, as far as regimentation can assure the fact, is spent in absolute subjection and serfdom. The private life has been entirely abolished. One tries to avoid cliché, and I did my best on a visit to this terrifying country in the year 2000, but George Orwell's 1984 was published at about the time that Kim Il Sung set up his system, and it really is as if he got hold of an early copy of the novel and used it as a blueprint. ("Hmmm … good book. Let's see if we can make it work.")

Actually, North Korea is rather worse than Orwell's dystopia. …Concealed in that pitch-black night is an imploding state where the only things that work are the police and the armed forces.

The situation is actually slightly worse than indentured servitude. The slave owner historically promises, in effect, at least to keep his slaves fed. In North Korea, this compact has been broken. It is a famine state as well as a slave state. Partly because of the end of favorable trade relations with, and subsidies from, the former USSR, but mainly because of the lunacy of its command economy, North Korea broke down in the 1990s and lost an unguessable number of people to sheer starvation. The survivors, especially the children, have been stunted and malformed. Even on a tightly controlled tour of the place—North Korea is almost as hard to visit as it is to leave—my robotic guides couldn't prevent me from seeing people drinking from sewers and picking up individual grains of food from barren fields. Film shot from over the Chinese border shows whole towns ruined and abandoned, with their few factories idle and cannibalized.” Christopher Hitchens


Due to the way the country has been run, allegedly on Marxist 'scientific/rationalist principles' they are totally dependent on foreign food and other aid, much from South Korea (25% Christian, prosperous and free) and the USA, but this has understandably been cut due to the exasperation of seeing North Korea developing nukes and threatening its neighbours while its people starve. See http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/north-korea-the-next-famine Is the nuclear test coupled with the ballistic missile threat part of a blackmail ploy? And what will happen if the food aid now dries up completely? And what will Obama do?

North Korea is one of the world’s last officially Atheist states. Its starving, repressed people seem to be even worse off than those who are unhappy enough to live under Sharia law in Muslim countries like Pakistan, which of course also has nuclear weapons. That old doomsday clock is ticking faster again.


In North Korea, Christians are forced to worship secretly and live in constant fear. If caught, penalties range from fines and imprisonment to torture and execution. Some flee to China, where if caught, repatriation followed by execution is a near certainty. A former North Korean State Security Officer has given evidence that North Koreans who try to escape to another country are usually executed.
http://www.cswusa.com/Countries/NorthKorea.htm

As Dawkins famously wrote, ‘Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually satisfied atheist.’ Atheism is the state religion of North Korea, and is imposed on children from the youngest age by a system which controls education, tells everyone what they must think, say and believe and prohibits information and questioning which are not considered condusive to the common good. Some would say we in Britain are some way down this path. It is certainly becoming much more difficult to be a Christian in public life and many are openly calling for the compulsory bringing up of all children as atheists. Since Dawkins believes that questioning Darwin and'or raising a child in a religious faith is child abuse, presumably he has a view on whether the children of Bible believing Christians should be taken into care? Sounds fanciful, or does it?

I have often written that Atheism (and its cousin Agnosticism, which as someone said is merely Atheism writ polite) must be a very comforting faith. There are no binding restrictions on your thoughts, speech and behaviour, no God to obey, and no future judgment to dread. I can envy this peaceful certaintly at times. But there is a world of difference in an Atheist enjoying (while they last) the benefits of a post-Christian society, and living in a state which takes Atheism seriously.

We should pity the victims of North Korea, but as we in Britain progressively reject the last vestiges of our Christian heritage, whether deliberately or by lazy and unthinking default, we should take note that In His mercy, God has allowed us to see what happens when a state takes Atheism and the belief that the state knows best seriously. When you get rid of God's laws, you are at least as likely, sooner or later, to get a secular tyranny as some form of true liberty-North Korea is evidence of that.

Ruth Padel, Darwinian poet

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

I first heard of the poet Ruth Padel a few months ago, when she was on Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’. This was trailed as part of the Darwin season, she being The Great Man’s great, great, great, great granddaughter. I listened to the programme and made notes on it, but didn’t post anything on the Questiondarwin blog as it didn’t seem that relevant. The interviewer mentioned that after her divorce, Padel had enjoyed ‘a number of significant relationships’ (BBC speak for ‘had sexual affairs with several men she wasn’t married to’). So routine these days, especially for a member of the literary estalishment, I was surprised the interviewer mentioned it.

The programme publicised her new book of poems about her celebrated ancestor, ‘Darwin, a life in poems’, which out of interest I purchased from Amazon along with another book of her poems. It strikes me as a competent and sensitively written biographic view in poetry of Darwin’s life and thoughts. The BBC also had her present a radio programme on Darwin, which I missed.

Now Ms Padel is in the news after her very recent election as Professor of Poetry at Oxford. The Private Eye of 15th May wrote about the election.

Private Eye1236 p25 ‘….whereas the contest to become poet laureate was clean though important… the battle for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry… has been considerably dirtier.

The ex-lover whom Ruth Padel celebrated in verse, mentioned but not named, has in effect outed himself as the Independent’s columnist John Walsh; and in giving ‘my old friend’ (Padel) his backing, he aired in the mainstream press for the first time allegations about sexual harassment in the past by (Padel’s) rival Derek Walcott, which Padel supporters have been circulating in a dossier.

A piquant plea, then: a call to vote for Padel on the grounds of sexual ethics, made by the man with whom she had a quasi-adulterous affair (she was single, he was living with his long standing partner and their children.)’

Anyway, since the Eye last went to print the election has taken place. Padel won after Walcott (whom experts say was the better qualified candidate, on which I have no opinion) stood down because, he said, of the smear campaign run against him by Padel supporters on the basis of sexual allegations which he denies. However, people often falsely deny inconvenient truths.

On the radio this morning, I heard that Ms Padel has been forced to retract her former denials that she had anything to do with the smear campaign against her rival. Now it turns out that she did indeed send allegations to 2 journalists. And then denied it. Oh dear.

The Mail records

“”A poet who was elected to a prestigious post at Oxford University is facing demands for her resignation following claims she circulated allegations about the sexual behaviour of her main rival for the job.

Ruth Padel had denied mentioning allegations of sexual harassment involving Derek Walcott. But last night it was reported that Ms Padel contacted at least two newspapers during the campaign for the post of Oxford professor of poetry, drawing attention to Mr. Walcott’s past.

Mr Walcott, 79, withdrew from the race at what he called a ‘low and degrading attempt at character assassination’.

Labour peer Lord Bragg, who had backed Ms Padel, was said last night to have called for her resignation. Ms Padel could not be contacted “”

For further details see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1187012/Oxford-University-poet-spread-sex-smears-rival.html or put Ruth Padel into Google news search.

Of course this tells us nothing directly about whether Darwinian evolution is true or false, it’s just one more little insight about how some people will behave in order to get their own way, or indeed to look after their mates. A lot of power and influence is distributed in our country on the basis of who you know, who you can get to speak up for you or against your rivals. Very Darwinian.

Opponents of Darwinism argue that many people want molecules to man evolution by unguided processes to be true, since if you get rid of the divine creator, with him goes the lawgiver and judge and so God's rather strict laws are replaced by human autonomy in matters of sexual ethics, truth and morality. One of the Huxleys freely admitted this in a quote which escapes me for the moment, saying he wanted to be rid of the Christian God so he could be free to indulge his sexual appetite without fear of judgment. I am sure that this is an important reason for people rejecting Christianity. you need evolution to get rid of the Creator, which is one reason why in today's godless Britain, Darwin is often referred to as a 'Liberator'.

I read in Lee Strobel’s book ‘The Case for Faith’ yesterday that people who refuse to believe in Christ, despite the manifold evidence for the truth of Christianity (covered very adequately in Strobel's books such as The Case for Christ and The Case for a Creator, if anyone wants to know) very often have a motive in the form of sexual or other sin of which they have no desire to repent. And this often seems to be the case with our British liberal left establishment with its famously ‘sexually liberated’ journalists, writers, politicians and various other people who fix things behind the scenes-not least the mutually selected Guardian-reading elite who run the BBC.

The BBC has given Ms Padel a lot of free publicity recently, frequently mentioning her relationship to Charles Darwin. But, curiously, the connection was not mentioned this morning. Still, survival of the fittest doesn’t necessarily mean the best candidate wins, just the one who (pardon the pun) is most ruthless. It will be interesting to see awhat happens next.

further comment on fossil lemur

http://www.questiondarwin.com

Malcolm Bowden, author of 'Rise of the Evolution Fraud' and other books on Evolution writes........



Having an interest in fossil "links" you might be interested in my thoughts which I expressed on Premier Radio on Tuesday. The question that I would be asked was "Does this fossil alter your views of creation and your Christian faith" My reply was on these lines -
...................................

"In no way does this fossil affect my views of creation or my Christian faith. In fact it confirms what I have been saying for many years. Let me explain.


In the 1970's following the first creation conference in this country, it was felt by many that creationists should produce a high quality book of the evidence against evolution just as the evolutionists produce many high quality books on their side. I felt I might try to write such a book and drafted out the chapter headings. Chapter 8 was "Ape-men "missing links"" which I felt I knew something about as I had received evidence from the Evolution Protest Movement which is now the Creation Science Movement - the oldest in the world.


I started writing but realised that I needed better proof than what I had received so far, so I started going to the British Natural History Museum library. I went there some 15-20 times and read the original reports. What I found was that they told a completely different story of these "missing link" discoveries to that which was being fed to the public by the Mass Media. Seeing that every one of the links was totally fraudulent, I realised that I had enough material for a complete book which I called "Ape-men: Fact or Fallacy?".


In the book I dealt with all the so-called links used by the evolutionists at that time - Pekin Man, Java Man and all the South African skulls and several other human skulls that had been totally ignored. I also showed that Teilhard de Chardin was the principle fraudster of the Piltdown "discoveries".

(PS I have been criticised elsewhere as 'lame' for referring to Piltdown, but this was not a prank or hoax, it was a DELIBERATE FRAUD perpetrated by evolutionists which deceived millions of people for many years. The acceptance of the Piltdown skull at the highest level of the British natural history establishment as 'evidence' of evolution for so long teaches us a lesson not only about the willingness of at least some leading evolutionists to deceive but also they and the public's willingness to BE DECEIVED. Malcolm has published evidence strongly pointing to very high level involvement in the Piltdown fraud-Dissenter)


Since then, there have been numerous further discoveries - and every one is claimed to be "the final missing link that now proves beyond doubt that we are descended from apes." If they find an ape fossil, they will highlight any minute indication that it might be a link to humans, of if is is a human fossil, that it has "ape-like features". The present fossil is a classic example of this because it has no "primitive toothcomb" teeth arrangement and no "special claw used for grooming" - which are taken as it is on the way to human development! If the subject and motivation were not so serious it would be laughable!


These discoveries are made with monotonous regularity every 12 months or so, and every time they are made they are always presented with a huge fanfare and hype that has been clearly coordinated on an international scale. This latest fossil was discovered 2 years ago, and was obviously held secret for promotion during Darwin's bicentenary year.


For many years I gave watched how that have been produced with such regularity, (like a production line of fossils) that I have long since given up trying to keep pace with them all. One thing can be guaranteed with every one of them - in 2 months time they will have been completely forgotten - until the next "discovery" is made.


Why are they produced with such a massive fanfare so regularly? The answer is obvious; they are used as a vehicle to thrust into the face of the public as frequently as possible the "fact" that they are only clever apes! Man is NOT descended from apes, but was created specifically by God in His own image - for His very own purposes!"
.......................................

I concur with Malcolm's view that the hype is a bigger and more instructive story than the lemur fossil. For those who can see beyond the soundbites, slogans and cliches the system feeds them. This would not be the first time that a supposedly 'missing link' human-ancestor fossil was produced at a very convenient time-remember Nebraska man and the Scopes 'monkey' trial. more detailed appraisal of the profound non-significance of the 'Darwin's lemur' (and the skilfully managed hype puffing it's supposed significance) can be found now or soon on Answers in Genesis and the Creation Science Movement sites. Dissenter

Fossil Lemur

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

STOP PRESS a lemur fossil has been discovered. It looks exactly like the drawing above. They discovered it a few years ago but now it has been revealed to an adoring world and named after Charles Darwin in his Big Year.

Its a lemur.

A fossilised one.

It looks like a lemur.

Because its a lemur.

Due to its excellent state of preservation, including its last meal, it must have been overwhelmed by liquid mud or simuilar very quickly, either by falling into a mud pit or due to a mudslide, perhaps caused by a very large flood. Poor lemur.

Sir David Attenborough and various others are delighted at this final proof of Darwin's theory. Now the doubters will clam up and die of shame.

This lemur fossil proves beyond doubt (to those who already had no doubt) that we all came by undirected processes from hydrogen atoms which came from the big bang, which came from......well, you have to have an uncreated first cause SOMEWHERE!

Dover, ID, critics, reflections on the Psalms, repentance

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

A man is allowed to change his mind; in fact sometimes it may be the only sane or moral thing to do. As a Christian and a Darwin dissenter I am always asking people to change their minds. I said I would end and delete this blog, but reconsidered partly because of words of encouragement from friends. However, the block on comment remains.

Some individuals who appear to have psychopathic personality disorders have been hurling increasingly torrid abuse at me personally because I challenge Darwin and also assert that Christ is Lord. This is their problem, not mine, and I don’t wish to continue to engage with them. If they call that ‘running away’, well I remember that sort of thing from the playground where I got bullied for being tall, clever and useless at football in London 40 odd years ago. God permitting I’ll post what I want, where I want, when I want. If you don't like it, please go away and, if you like, start your own blog.

Reflections on the Psalms


I have been reading through the Psalms a lot recently. There is much reflection in these timeless poems and prayers on the sorrow that comes from trying (unsuccessfully) to live a good life in a naughty world. In Psalm 42 verse 3 we read

‘My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me ‘where is your God’

and in Psalm 43 vs 10

‘My enemies reproach me, while they say to me all day long ‘Where is your God?’

Many other Psalms contain similar heartfelt prayers and painful reflections. I find these comforting as a sinner in need of grace.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Ch5 Vs 11-12, Jesus said

‘Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

And Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3.12

‘Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution’ and a page earlier (2.25-26) ‘A servant of God must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth and come to their senses.’

Many other such verses could be added. The Bible writers knew what it was like to be hated for trying their best to do the right thing.


Criticism-fair and unfair

I have been on the receiving end of criticism, some of it fair and/or well mannered, much iof it neither, since I first came out and challenged Darwinian evolution. It would take too long to chronicle it, but I merely ask, should conversations about origins (and therefore being, meaning and destiny) be conducted in an atmosphere of distraction tactics, trickery, misrepresentation, hate and cursing? Should a question or assertion about a matter of science be met with sneering personal abuse? Should a sincerely held belief even if questionable be called a lie? Should a man be called a cretin for asking a question?


I recently posted a couple of comments on a blog linked to from here, ID in the UK, and was promptly pounced upon by 2 of the usual suspects, whose poisonous hate-filled abuse you can read if you like. I responded in part, but I have been doing this long enough to know that a point-by-point rebuttal of a hate post does nothing but consume time that might be better spent looking out of the window. ‘They only do it to annoy’.

Dover/Behe-so what?

Darwinists remain very excited about the Dover ‘intelligent design’ trial and alleged failure of the intelligent design movement to come up with a falsifiable test for intelligent design. As far as the Dover trial is concerned, its clear that the ACLU (the same people who cunningly rigged the Scopes ‘monkey trial’) were heavily involved, and the outcome gave great comfort to those who want Darwinian evolution to be protected from criticism. OK, bully for them, and what a surprise. But since when did any court of law have the authority to establish or overturn ANY point of science? I have often cited Michael Behe, who is considered by many to be a prophet of intelligent design, and will do so again. It has become customary to shout ‘Dover! Dover!’ whenever anyone cites Behe’s work.

Non Sequitur

I am not going into Behe’s work in depth right now, but the facts and arguments in his 2 books ('Darwin’s Black Box' and his more recent one ‘The Edge of Evolution’ stands or falls on its merit, not on whether he was involved in a court case that his side lost or the fact that a book is not the same as a per-reviewed paper (and what is peer review but the establishment agreeing with what is agreed with, approving what is approved?). Isn't that obvious? If Dawkins found himself on the losing side in a court case, would that invalidate his beliefs? Of course, there is a Court Case coming up where each of us will be a defendant, and believe me, you want to have Jesus as your defending barrister on that day. But that’s another matter.

Intelligent design unfalsifiable? No, that would be Darwinian evolution

Is it fair to slate intelligent design as not having produced a scientific test which proves or falsifies it? The most obvious riposte is that evolution has produced no such test. No species has ever been seen to change into another species, unless you call species splitting into varieties new species (which was in fact one of Darwin’s chief tricks). Nobody has seen mutations add coherent, meaningful new information-the trend is very strongly in the opposite direction-see John Sanford’s book on genetic entropy which I have often mentioned. Cedric’s assertion that ‘books don’t count’ is astonishing, and I doubt if he would apply his to books he agrees with, like Origin of Species or The God Delusion perhaps? Evidence is evidence wherever you find it, to be weighed and considered on its merits.


What is intelligent design (ID) ?

I humbly suggest ID is a hypothesis that living things must have been designed because they are too complicated to have assembled themselves from simple chemicals, because they contain constrained and coherent information, and such information is only ever observed to arise from intelligent sources. Seems reasonable to me, and fits with the Biblical revelation which was sealed by Christ’s miraculous fulfilment of prophecies, matchless moral teaching, miracles and resurrection. ID is not the same as belief in Divine creation, but evidently Biblical creationists find ID arguments fit the case. A lot more could be said, and has been (see links).


It seems to me that the intelligent design hypothesis could be falsified by demonstrating simple molecules organising themselves into coherent, functional molecular machines which formed living cells and organisms. ID could also be falsified by demonstrating mutations in living plants and animals adding new useful features for natural selection to work on to make new kinds of animals. But this hasn’t been done. It can't be done. I think this is why Darwinians are so angry (and they obviously are angry-look at the mockery and hate they speak and post)-ID fits the facts better than Darwin, and of course they don't like it and use the courts and vile accusations of child abuse to try to stop children hearing about it and doubting Darwin.

Louis Pasteur’s test tubes

Louis Pasteur showed by simple repeatable experiments that life did not originate spontaneously but only ever came from life. This has never been overthrown. Molecules to man evolution requires life to self-generate and then undergo continual improvements through information-building mutations. These mutations, to all intents and purposes, do not occur. They certainly do not occur with anything like the frequency which evolution needs. John Sanford, who is a serious geneticist from a serious university, has written this up in serious detail. I am not addressing myself to mockers and haters, but if anyone has any doubts about the ability of hydrogen atoms to turn into people by unguided processes, he should read John Sanford’s book on genetic entropy and the genome.

Finally, a verse from the book of Proverbs, chapter 29 verse 9

‘If a wise man contends with a foolish man, whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace.’

Far be it from me to call anyone but myself a fool. But I do seek peace. But not at any cost.

Changed my mind

http://www.questiondarwin.com

Thanks Andrew and a few others for your kind words. On reflection, I have decided that although I cannot continue big inputs of time into this project, and I will not host any more abusive comments, since several good folks have said they appreciate the thoughts I have composed and posted over the last year and a bit, I am leaving most of them up.


I have spent a few hours over the last days going through my posts, and despite spelign miskates and some waffle and repetition on my part and other failings, most of what I have left up says what I wanted to say and I stand by it. I have deleted a couple of dozen of my posts for various reasons, mainly lack of focus and repetition, and corrected a few others.


I was intemperate at times and yes I have called a few people liars, but whenever I have done so I believe I have specified the statement I thought was a deliberate untruth and said why. If I was incorrect, I am sorry, but sadly some people do tell lies, and often these are the ones quickest to accuse others of the same. But this blog was never about what a jolly fine person I am. I regret to say that I am a sinner like other men, although I am sorry for my sins and trust Christ for forgiveness.


This blog has been savaged in various places, if I remove it then any misrepresentations made against what I have written can't be checked or challenged, so I probably have no choice but to leave up most of what I have written even if I don't add to it.


My primary purpose has been to question and challenge Darwinian evolution and declare that Jesus of Nazareth is God's way of salvation and eternal life.

Kind regards everyone. and goodbye.

REALLY the last post-response to critic

http://www.questiondarwin.com

Its difficult to end a conversation sometimes, and when it's a big argument about irreconcilable differences may be even harder. There is something about 'getting in the last word'. When you believe passionately that you are right and the other person is incorrect and needs to know it and change their mind, you can end up raising your voice, losing your cool, saying things you later regret. I have done all that and I'm sorry, I will try to do better in future.


In my 'last post' I mentioned some of the key areas in which I thought that Darwinian evolution AT THE VERY LEAST was extremely weak and open to question. Detractors have accused me of not only being ignorant on some of these key areas but having repeatedly refused to be corrected and so to be holding on to my ignorance because I refuse to look at facts and be enlightened.

These charges concerns not only my intellect but integrity. I deny them. However, to refute them in full, ( I believe I already have) I'd have to go back over the tens of thousands of words I have put into over 170 posts over the last 15 months or so and say everything again-in other words, to continue a discussion I want to stop for now. If anyone wants to accuse me of running way from an argument because I am ignorant or anything else, that is their choice.


But in this VERY last post, i will set out a brief response to the one who seems to accuse me of misrepresenting evolutionists over origin of life.

let me sketch out the origin of life issue briefly.


A long time ago, the earth existed in something very like its present geophysical form but there were no living plants, animals or humans on it. Creationists and evolutionists all believe this.

Now there is life of many kinds.


THEREFORE the plants, animals and humans had to begin existing at some point. Are we all agreed so far?

Living things had to come into existence either by a guided process (shall we call this creation) or by some other process which was NOT guided.


Today, by investigative science, we know a great deal about living things. We know that the simplest living thing is a single celled organism. We know that a single celled organism is extraordinarily complex, more complex than a jumbo jet or a large computer. It is made up of many parts (cell wall, cytoplasm, nucleus, ribosomes, enzymes and many. many more). All of the parts are necessary or none of them work. Even Dawkins in his book Blind Watchmaker which claims to address this issue admits that life has the appearance of being designed. There are many mysteries in life, but sometimes things ARE what they appear to be.


Evolutionists cannot explain how the first living thing came to be from previously existing non-living things (simple molecules). They just can't. Can't, can't, can't.


Darwin avoided the subject. He speculated in a letter to T E Huxley that life may have arisen from chemicals 'in a warm pond somewhere'. Things are not much further on today.


At A level biology, I was taught about the Miller-Urey experiment (which I have criticised often enough' I'm not going over it again today) which with high inputs of energy in an optimised and rather improbable experimental environment produced a low yield of a very few amino acids in an unusable form. I was led to believe by my teachers that these amino acids and other chemicals given time would ultimately organise themselves into the first living cell, and natural selection would do the rest. I remember finding this very hard to believe and a pretty inadequate explanation as an 18 year old, and in the light of what I have learned since then, find it completely unbelievable, despite the fact that refinements of the experiment has increased the yield of amino acids somewhat. They remain unusable and there are many other stages in protein synthesis which as far as we can tell only ever happen in a fully functioning cell.


The impression given by my critic is that science has moved on much farther since then and I am clinging to my ignorance by refusing to accept this. However, beyond acusing me of ignorance and misrepresentation, does not say what present day evolutionsts actually believe or direct us to where such knowledge can be found.


Going to the Darwin Day site run by Dawkins, Scott and several other, mainly atheist evolutionists, it is instructive to see what they have to say on the origin of life. The brief statement is used 'life probably arose'. the last time I visited their site that was it. Professors all, economical though that 3 word statement is, you could make it even briefer without losing meaning by deleting the superfluous word 'probably', since we know that since life is here and once wasn't, it DID arise. Yes, but in the absence of a directing intelligence, HOW?



We hear about 'self organising molecules'-a mere hopeful tautology, and 'the RNA world'- pure speculation, and we often hear that 'scientists are on the verge of creating life in the laboratory'-using their pooled intelligences, sophisticated computers and ingredients taken from existing life forms! And as has been noted on the Answers in Genesis web site where this is discussed, IF (and its a very big IF) they did succeed, it would only prove that a very great deal of intelligent effort and some dandy ingredients derived from organic life is needed to produce even the simplest form of life.


So, my assertion that evolutionists believe that the first living cell assembled itself through the random movement of molecules is I think a fair one even if it does not do complete justice to the fulness of their speculations and various possible leads they claim to be chasing. IT IS EITHER DESIGN OR CHANCE.


Cell biology shows multiple levels of complexity beyond our imagining, and I believe it remains fair comment to say that evolutionists believe and assert that life self assembled by random movement of molecules, however much this is overlaid with various maybes and asides. If anyone can show diferent, they have until Tuesday lunchtime when the blog finally comes down.


In support of the above statements, I mention the book I cited yesterday, John Sanford's Mystery of the Human Genome and Genetic Entropy, and for the complexity of life and why it could not have come together without intellgent design, regardless of the criticisms Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box and the brilliant follow up, The Edge of Evolution. Whenever Behe is mentioned the same criticisms come up, but his arguements and the facts he cites are still there. If anyone wants to think beyond the distractions. diversions, put downs and slogans they could always read the books themselves.


Finally, and I mean Finally, I refer to Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 1. Here we find the beginings of the intelligent design argument. Paul writes that men are without excuse for denying God because God has revealed Himself throught 'the things which have been made' i.e. the Creation. Darwinism is fundamentally about denying this assertion of Paul's in order to get rid of the Christian religion. Logically, you might think Evolution would get rid of all religions equally, but it doesn't seem to have damaged Islam, Hinduism or various forms of New Age spirituality which are all growing, as is resurgent Paganism. Darwinism seems to specifically harm Christianity. Why would that be, do you think? I have some ideas, but they woudl fill a book, and I have a taxi to the airport to get in 20 minutes, so goodbye.

The last post-terminating blog

http://www.questiondarwin.com/
Dear visitors and readers

After 18 months or so I am terminating and deleting this blog.

I am putting this last post up a week or so before I delete the whole thing, out of courtesy towards those who come here often in case they wonder why if it just dissapears. My reasons for stopping are my own but generally speaking, I no longer feel moved to continue to add to this blog and have many other calls on my time. It has been a big drain on my time and mental energies, and the hostility of the responses has saddened me. A year was enough.


Blogs have been in the news a lot lately, they are ephemeral things which come and go. Think of this one as a temporary newsletter commenting on the run up to the Darwin Day celebrations, which as I noted are over. Not that they amounted to much more than some predictable books and a series of one sided BBC hagiographies which even Private Eye commented were too frequent, overlong and dreary. Even Dawkins can hardly say that they caught the imagination of the general public.


Regardless of negative comments, I do not believe that I have been bested in fair argument on the big issues of evidence against Darwinian evolution concerning abiogenesis, irreducible complexity, genetic entropy/deleterious effect of mutations, origin of information in the DNA, sudden appearance with extinctions and stasis in the fossil record. But who is the impartial judge who can decide? I will most likely continue (after a break) to question and criticise Darwin elsewhere as and when I feel moved and have opportunity, and may well launch a blog with a different focus, later.


Perhaps the most memorable bit of nonsense I found in my review of Origin of Species was the bit where Darwin said that 'He could hardly doubt' that the vertebrate lung had evolved from the swim bladder of an extinct fish 'of which we know nothing'. That bold assertion of faith in absent evidence well exemplifies his way of starting with a conclusion-that his theory was true-and then manipulating the evidence to allegedly fit it. But I've said all this before.


Supporters of the status quo who may be glad I'm off may wish to reflect on the BBC opinion polls, commented on at the Creation Science Movement web site and elsewhere, which show that despite the masses of pro-evolution propaganda, still barely half the population is fully convinced of unguided molecules to man evolution. Imagine what the figures would be if the evidence against were allowed fair consideration in our education and media!?!

FINALLY

I can't remember if I posted the below already, I wrote most of it a while ago, but anyway will let it stand as the final post as I think it makes a point which everyone ought to note wherever on the circle of belief and doubt they stand.


ON LYING

>>>>>The Oxford reference dictionary defines a lie as ‘an intentionally false statement’. A liar deliberately sets out to deceive, usually to get out of trouble, escape unwanted obligations or debts, or to gain something they can’t get honestly. And of course we lie to ourselves when we deny unwelcome things, Its called denial.


Anyone who follows the comments will note that I have been called a liar on several occasions. I haven’t usually responded, but the issue deserves a response for the benefit of anyone who might think I hadn’t responded because I couldn’t.


We can all be mistaken; some of us must be as we believe different things. There is a world of difference between being sincerely mistaken and lying. We all know that, but some of us act as if we didn’t.


To illustrate, I have a mentally handicapped 22 year old daughter who is a sincere and loving person but not of the brightest. She trusts me. Suppose I told her that Charles Darwin had recanted on his death bed, realised he was wrong, denied evolution and begged God for forgiveness for having deceived the world? That would be a lie on my part. There is no good evidence Darwin recanted (I am aware of the Lady Hope story, this is fragmentary and uncorroborated). His relatives and friends denied any last minute change of heart, including his devoted wife Emma, who disagreed with his agnostic/atheist views, so had a motive for telling the world of any late change of mind. In any event, it would make no difference to his ideas.


Anyhow, if I told my daughter this story, which I believe to be untrue, she would believe me, and quite likely tell it to others as true. She would be passing false information on to them, but sincerely believing it was true since she trusted me (just as most people who accept the evolution story do so on authority without having researched it for themselves). I would have lied; she would be sincerely mistaken but no liar. She would be historically inaccurate but morally blameless, whereas I would be inaccurate and also morally reprehensible-a liar.


Again, if someone told me that single celled life forms had arisen from supposed ‘self replicating molecules’ in the supposed ‘primal soup’ and that humans had descended with modification from such ‘primitive’ life, as Darwinists believe, I would not call them a liar. Wrong, misinformed, ignorant, credulous, brainwashed and peer-pressured by the system-yes, all of those things but not a liar. I might ask a few questions and/or point them to contrary evidence, but I wouldn’t call them a liar.


So when I say that the cell is far too complex to have come into being by random movements of simple molecules, that the rocks do not reveal the gradual sequences of transitional/intermediate fossils which Darwin’s theory requires, that genetic mutations do not support the idea of molecules to man evolution (quite the reverse), etc, then if someone calls me a liar for saying this- then what does that say about the person making the accusation?
Either they believe I making an intentionally false statement or they don’t. In the former case, they are accusing me, as a professed Christian, of doing something the Bible says God will judge me severely for. Why would I want to do that?


On the other hand, if they believe me to be merely sincerely mistaken, aren’t they lying by asserting that I am lying? I am strongly motivated not to lie (although, weak flesh that I am, I still can lie) as I believe that one day I will stand before the Judgment Seat of God, who knows all things and hates lies. Why lie for Jesus, who described his opponent, Satan, as the father of lies and a liar from the beginning? I don’t fancy having such a father: if I did, I would insist on being put up for adoption!


This blog and my web site are (were) my best, flawed efforts to present evidence and arguments against Darwin and for Biblical Christianity, because I think it matters profoundly. Jesus told His followers to expect abuse ‘…if men hate you, be aware that they hated Me first’. I have nothing to say in defence of my character, which God (and even my family and friends) knows is flawed in many, many ways-thanks be to God for Jesus through Whom we can be forgiven even of lying if we confess our sins and repent.


I offer these reflections on the nature of lying, and of accusing others of lying, in lieu of a personal refutation of each time this particularly ofensive accusation has been made. Anyone who knows me realises that ‘liar’ is one of the most hateful accusations possible to me. As a Christian I am obliged to forgive , from my heart, each and every unpleasant statement made against me, be it true or false, and with God's help I so do.


Re denial: Darwin defenders, atheists and frankly everyone else have my sympathy. I even have my sympathy. I know from experience how difficult it is when you are confronted with evidence which points to you being wrong and threatens to overturn your world view and comfort zone. But it happens and we all have to deal with it. Denial, which is basically lying to yourself, doesn’t help in the long run. I know, I've had to own up to and beg forgiveness for misdeeds of which I am absolutely ashamed. But awful though lying is, God in Christ can forgive our sins if we first acept and confess them. And that begins by aqdmittign to ourselves that we are wrong. A very hard thing to do, I know because I've had to do it, and not just at the start of my Christan life either.<<<<<<<


This will be my very last post here. I am taking this blog down and deleting it, in about a week, and I won't be responding to any further posts. I have said what I had to say during the run up to the Darwin celebration, some of my comments here have been later posted, some edited, on the Creation Science Movement web site adn I may well post there again from time to time as I feel moved. Sorry I have not responded to every response, I have said why not and I was never under any obligation to, as discussed.


I wish all readers good health and happiness, and above all that they come to a personal and saving knowledge of the Truth that is in Jesus Christ.

Amen

Darwinian medicine?

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

I have recently been doing a bit of reading about "Evolutionary medicine". There is actually no such thing outside the imagination of Darwinian propagandists, but Evolution claims to own just about everything, so why not medicine?

On an article on the web site, ‘Darwinian Medicine’ the following claim is made by J. Graham Smith, Jr., MD Editor


“In clinical medicine, most practitioners face the consequences of evolution on a daily basis, namely the development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.”

However..

This is natural selection, not evolution. Antibiotics are mostly naturally occuring microbial products and resistance has always existed, it has become more common due to excessive use of antibiotics. This has redistributed elements in the gene pool, not created anything. The processes which may in some cases produce new antimicrobial resistance involve the loss of information and do not add new genes. This is well writen up on Answers in Genesis web site and in Michael Behe's book 'The Edge of Evoution'. The young earth creationist has no difficulty accepting the science of antibiotic resistance, which proves no more than it proves-that not all bugs are killed by all antibiotics. they are still the same species of e.coli or whatever.

Typically, antibiotic resistance is put across as the first of a long list of area of medicine where ‘Darwinian Medicine’ holds the key. However, this is their flagship argument and the rest is speculation.

Dr Smith goes on to say


“Many of the signs, symptoms, and diseases related to evolutionary medicine must be considered conjecture.”


So, its all speculation, as usual with Darwinian evolutionism. He then speculates….


“Daily bathing is a recent custom, with weekly or less frequent baths common 100 years ago. Infrequent bathing was even more common several hundred years ago. Today's excessive bathing removes the natural surface lipids that maintain hydration of the outer layers of the skin, preventing dryness and itching (winter itch) (we call this condition asteatotic eczema-Dissenter). Perhaps over the next few thousand years, human skin will become oilier as a protection against frequent bathing.“

How would this happen? Natural selection would not be active, since asteatotic eczema is a condition of the elderly who have already had their children, indeed grandchildren, and does not in any event affect survival. I know, I treat these people in my clinic. And where would the new genes come from to produce oilier skin? This speculation is quite irrational even in terms of Darwinian natural selection.


Furthermore, oilier skin in young people produces acne, this is a plain fact. We may speculate with little fear of contradiction that severe acne reduces people’s attractiveness to the opposite sex, therefore in Darwinian terms young people with oilier skin may be LESS likely to pass on their genes. So we can see that Dr Smith hasn’t thought this through at all.


On the subject of skin cancer, he further speculates


“Pigmentation gives protection against sun damage. Darkly pigmented individuals are less likely to have skin cancer, and albinos have a markedly increased incidence. However, in patients with xeroderma pigmentosum, an inherited disorder associated with pronounced sun sensitivity, defective deoxyribonucleic acid repair after ultraviolet injury, and a marked increase in skin cancer, skin cancers develop regardless of pigmentation.11 Thus, increased melanin pigmentation may have evolved for other reasons, such as camouflage and heat absorption.12


He is dead right about albinism and xeroderma pigmentosum (which are both random mutations, of the sort which in Darwinian fantasy land are suposed to build new genes. In the real world of observational science, they destroy existing genes, as in these 2 diseases) leading to increased levels of skin cancer. I wrote a leaflet for the Creation Science Movement about this, asking how evolutionists think our ancestors survived, let alone on the plains of Africa, before melanin and DNA check and repair (and other systems such as cell mediated immunity which wpork together to protect us against skin cancer) supposedly evolved by information-adding random mutations.


Dr Smith then states “Ephelides (freckles) and lentigines (liver spots) may represent abortive attempts at increased pigmentation.


Lentigines do indeed develop where there is excessive sun damage, but this is no more evolutionary than the development of stronger muscles or calluses due to usage and is not inheritable. . I am sure that Dr Smith would not want to be considered a Lamarckian, the evolutionist's second worst insult after ‘creationist’? In any event, they mainly affect old people who have already reproduced if they are going to.


He continues “Next to pigmentation, thickness of the outer layer of the skin (stratum corneum) is the most effective mechanism for protection from sun damage. (this is highly debateable-Dissenter) Are actinic keratoses an attempt to thicken the stratum corneum and protect from sun damage?”


Well, on that last point those of us in the skin cancer community tend to think (in fact we know from research and everyday observation) that actinic keratoses are due to genetic damage by solar radiation, analagous to cervical dysplasia due to human papilloma viruses. Only an hour ago, (I’m blogging from clinic during my lunch break) I scraped a very large solar keratosis off an elderly gentleman’s head and prescribed some 5-fluorouracil cream (an antimetabolite) to treat his other actinic keratoses. Do you want to know why? Because proper scientific research (unlike Darwinian speculation) has shown that actinic keratoses are in fact ‘evolving’ (to use the term in the sense of meaning ‘changing into’ ) invasive squamous cell skin cancers. Of the sort that kill so many African albinos (I have blogged on this before) and keep skin cancer surgeons so busy.


I don’t mean to be unduly smug, but I fear that Dr Smith does not know as much medicine, certainly not dermatology, as he would like readers to think. Darwinian evolutionism has made no contributions to medicine, and the development of the term seems just one more red herring designed to hoodwink people into thinking that Darwinian thinking has more explanatory power than it actually does. He is just spraying evolutionary speculation over facts and then calling the facts Darwinian.

Bats to Darwin

http://www.questiondarwin.com/

As I’ve said, I’m not going to leave whatever narrative I choose to follow by going to check something else, I know a distraction tactic when I see one, but as I was accused of scientific illiteracy over supposed bat evolution, I did a little homework. There is a fair bit on bat evolution on line, I remember reading some speculation about echo location in the Blind Professor by watchfaker Dawkins. This is not a PhD thesis just a brief overview, and no doubt someone will correct me if there is specific evidence which they think overturns my view.
Starting with the BBC, see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4213495.stm

we read the following cobbled together speculation (my italics)


“”A sharp rise in global temperatures about 50 million years ago may have been responsible for the evolution of bats, Science magazine reports….This warming is linked to an explosion in the diversity of other mammals, but little was known about bat evolution.

Bats make up 20% of mammals, yet their evolutionary history is poorly known.
The warmer climate caused insects to flourish, and bats evolved unique aviation skills and echolocation to catch them, it is claimed.

We suggest that... microbats diversified in response to an increase in prey diversity and that the varied microbat echolocation and flight strategies may have resulted from differential niche exploitation at that time," the researchers write in Science.

Ancestors linking bats to other mammal groups lived during the Palaeocene period which followed the extinction of the dinosaurs. However, none of their fossils have ever been discovered. “”””

So in other words, nothing is known about how bats supposedly evolved from non-bat ancestors by slow Darwinian natural selection acting on random mutations, but as it is an article of faith that this must have happened, any facts that come to hand will be aligned to the speculative story and called evidence.

No surprise to find a similar article in the BBC’s house newspaper, the Guardian, and again far fetched claims are made on the skimpiest of evidence.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/13/bat.evolution?gusrc=rss&feed=science



“”””The oldest fossilised bats ever discovered have given palaeontologists an unprecedented insight into the flying mammals' evolution. The find puts to rest a long-standing argument over which came first, flight or echolocation - the bats' exotic navigation system. The new species of bat could fly, but didn't use echolocation.

"When we first saw it, we knew it was special," said Dr Nancy Simmons at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was part of the team. "It's clearly a bat, but unlike any previously known. In many respects it is a missing link between bats and their non-flying ancestors." (but Nancy, you just said it was a BAT, now its a missing link. So which is it?)

Scientists have wrestled with three alternative theories for the evolution of bats: flight evolved before echolocation; echolocation came before flight; or both happened in parallel. The new pair of fossils - which date from around 52.5m years ago - resolve the issue.

"There has been much debate about how bats evolved, because there were no specimens to address this issue," said Dr Kevin Seymour at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. "Now the combination of features seen in this species finally gives us an answer: that flying evolved first and echolocation must have evolved later."

Note that the argument centres on whether flight or echolocation supposedly evolved first. Is it well known that some bats use echolocation to catch insects by night, and some don’t. Whereas all bats fly. The point is that both flight and echolocation are irreducibly complex and neither could have evolved by Darwinian means since the supposed intermediate stages would not have actually worked and so would not have been selected for. The fact that some bats do not have echolocation only proves that, no more. As usual, this main issue is ignored in favour of embellished speculation about side issues.

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/earliest-bat-shows-flight-developed-before-echolocation/

“”””Their heads and bodies of bats have amassed an extraordinary array of adaptations that have make them lords of the night sky. Today, the thousand-plus types of bats make up a fifth of living mammal species. Richard Dawkins once described the evolution of bats as “one of the most enthralling stories in all natural history” and as of this week, the story has a clearer beginning.


Flight or echolocation

When the flight-echolocation debate first started, the “echolocation-first” camp had the upper hand. According to this school of thought, the earliest bats used echolocation from tree perches to detect and snatch passing insects, and indeed, the most primitive of modern bats sometimes use this technique. The ancestral bats then evolved long, webbed arms and fingers to better catch their prey and eventually took to jumping after them.””””


This last item reprises the arguments I have already shown false, and also adds a majestic Darwinian phrases ‘The heads and bodies of bats have amassed an extraordinary array of adaptations”” and 'the ancestral bats then evolved long webbed fingers and arms (etc)....' simply assuming that the ‘adaptations’ appeared ‘just like that’. All three narratives assume that wanting something or having a use or opportunity for it would call forth the necessary new genetic information to make it happen. Just like Bob Dylan's line in the song 'please crawl out your window, where he sang 'if he needs a third eye, he just grows it' This is not observed to happen and there is no logical reason why it could, would or should. Rqandom mutation can't do this, and there is no other mechanism available.

There are plenty more items about supposed bat evolution, but all the ones I saw mostly just churned the above and similar minor facts and big speculations like the three I cite above. The fact is that we have various species of living bats, fossil bats which are more or less identical, and nothing else but speculation. This is Darwinism, and today is a celebration of folly and madness.

I am not the one who is scientifically illiterate-there are no intermediate forms between bats and a non-bat ancestor, no evidence that bats evolved from animals that were not bats, and since random mutations do not add the kind of specific non-random coded information which could build new structures, no mechanism by which they could have done so.

Darwinian evolution is dead, it just won’t lie down because such a big industry and an even bigger religion is based on it. It is being propped up for now, but great shall be its fall!