X-Nilo Files, 2(1), September 1999

Welcome back!

This year X-Nilo Files will follow a theme – Refuting Evolution. Each month we will take a chapter from Dr Jonathan Sarfati’s new book (by that same title) and discuss it. Your club leader will have received a copy of the book, so discussion will be easy and simple. You can order your own copy for only $1.00. In addition, the Answers in Genesis Web site has a study guide which your club can use to help stimulate discussion of this important topic.

Also each month, we will feature a well-known creation scientist actively involved in research today. And the winner this month is…Dr Jonathan Sarfati. You can learn more about him in the 'Creation Scientist' column.

Another monthly feature will be 'Science in the News'. This column will draw attention to current science events about which you may have read in your local newspaper, or have seen on TV.

Finally, we really, really want you to write us! Each month we will feature a student article. But since we – the staff of X-Nilo Files (and Answers in Genesis) – are not students, we can’t write that column! It’s up to you. See this student column (below) for instructions.

Have a great year, and …Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

Did You Know?

Physiologically speaking, 70 percent of all our sense receptors are located in our eyes, and that the human ear is a detection device that utilizes a level of technology that no science has been able to attain or understand? (The Wonders of Man, Werner Gitt, CLV, 1999)

Proverbs 20:12 tells us, 'The hearing hear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them.' (KJV)

The heart beats 100,000 times per day. It is a maintenance-free pump that functions unattended throughout life, generally requiring no replacement parts! (The Wonders of Man, Werner Gitt, CLV, 1999)

Evolutionists—they don’t understand science!

Q.Evolutionists insist that evolution IS science. So what example do you have that they really don’t understand science?

A. In the National Academy of Sciences book sent to public schools across America, teachers are told to tell their students that evolution is fact. The evolutionists who wrote the book, who are supposed to be leading scientists, give many examples for teachers to use in their classes.

One example concerns antibiotic resistance in micro-organisms. Teachers are told that this is an example of evolution that we see happening before our very eyes. However, antibiotic resistance in organisms like bacteria is actually the OPPOSITE of evolution.

You see, scientists know that when antibiotics are used, some bacteria will already have genes to enable them to be resistant. This is an INHERITED resistance. They also know that some bacteria can become resistant because of mutations, or 'mistakes' in the genes.

In fact, in Science News (April 1998), a scientist gave an example of how a particular bacterium became resistant to antibiotics because a mutation damaged or destroyed a particular gene that produced a special enzyme.

But LOSS of information in the genes is the OPPOSITE of evolution. It actually fits with the answers in Genesis – that things are running down, not evolving!

— excerpt from the Answers . . . with Ken Ham radio program, September 10, 1998

Scientist of the Month

Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D.

Read Dr Sarfati’s bio!

X-Nilo: What were your favorite subjects in high school (secondary school, pre-college level)?

Jonathan Sarfati: Science, mathematics, Latin.

XN: When did you decide you wanted to be a “creation scientist?”

JS: I had already graduated in my Bachelor of Science degree when I became convinced that a literal Genesis creation was the only consistent view of Scripture, especially the teaching that death and suffering is the result of Adam’s sin. Working at AiG seemed like the ideal career that would make use of both my scientific training and interest in Christian apologetics (defending the faith logically).

XN: What is your definition of 'creation scientist'?

JS: In the broad sense, any scientist who believes that direct creation is needed to explain the origin of the universe and life, an in particular the diverse types of living things. More usually, a scientist who believes the plain teaching of the Genesis record of creation.

XN:What is your favorite part about being labeled a 'creation scientist'?

JS: Probably helping Christians whose faith was wavering because of attacks by secular evolutionists, or even worse, by church members or leaders who don’t believe Genesis as written.

XN: You seem to be quite a chess player. Can you play chess without looking at the board? That is a skill that is thought highly of here in America, and only a few people can do it.

JS: This is called 'blindfold chess.' I think that any chessmaster could manage at least one blindfold game, although skill at blindfold play doesn’t always correlate with ordinary playing strength. I have played and won six blindfold games simultaneously, and could probably manage at least ten.

XN: Have you ever debated an evolutionist? Who won? Was it fun?

JS: I was invited by the head of Organic Chemistry at my university to give a 'loopholes' talk after he had given three talks defending the evolutionary origin of life view. After my talk, he agreed that I had raised 'major hurdles,' and admitted 'if a vote were taken, I would surely come off worse.'

XN: Do you have any advice for our readers?

JS:

• Study God’s infallible written Word, the Bible.
  
  
• Base your thinking on this, not the changing scientific theories of fallible humans.
  
  
• Learn what evolutionists believe, and how creationists answer their claims.
  
  
• Work hard and be respectful to teachers.
  
  
• Gain the highest degree possible at a well-recognized university.
  
  

Refuting Evolution

Science and Bias

Excerpt from Refuting Evolution, Chapter 1 – Evolution & Creation, Science & Religion, Facts & Bias

Many evolutionary books contrast religion/creation/opinion with evolution/science/facts. This can be a misleading contrast. Why? Creationists often appeal to the facts of science to support their view. Evolutionists, on the other hand, often appeal to philosophical assumptions from outside science. The debate between creation and evolution is primarily a dispute between two world views – Christianity and humanism.

It is fallacy to believe that facts speak for themselves because facts are interpreted according to a framework. The framework behind evolutionism is naturalism. The framework behind creation is the Bible.

It is not a question of biased religious creationists versus objective scientific evolutionists. It is the biases of the Christian religion versus the biases of the religion of secular humanism. This results in different interpretations of the same scientific data. It doesn’t matter who is biased. Everyone is biased. It matters whether one is biased with the correct bias!

Science has its limits. Normal (operational) science deals only with repeatable, observable processes in the present. Evolution is a speculation about the unobservable and unrepeatable past.

Creationists don’t pretend that any knowledge – science included – can be pursued without prior religious or philosophical beliefs. Creationists affirm that creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the Bible any more than evolutionism can ultimately be divorced from its naturalistic starting point which excludes a divine creation.

— Dr Jonathan Sarfati

Check out the complete study guide to accompany Dr Sarfati’s book: Refuting Evolution.

Science in the News

Monkey see, Monkey say?

The Sunday Times (United Kingdom) August 1, 1999, headline reads: 'Scientists teach chimps to speak English.' The major news networks picked up the 'story.' Just hearing about the story, one is led to believe that man has taught an ape to speak! But, further investigation points out that the chimps make noises that 'sound like' English, distinguishable to the chimps’ trainers. We are also told that these chimps (apes) can push the correct button on a 400-button keyboard to get what they want.

Researchers at Georgia State University’s language research center in Atlanta allow that the chimps have been able to hold conversations with humans. And, the chimp actually 'told' scientists in sign language that it wanted to buy a pool (this was signed during a recent heatwave).

These scientists informed the news media that one of the chimps even started writing words on the floor using chalk - apparently learning letters from the computer screens. It is believed by these scientists that the chimps have the language and cognitive skills of a four-year-old child.

Such language implies that the chimps can talk. In reality, however, the chimp, who allegedly has a vocabulary of 3,000 words, 'talks' through a computer that makes voice sounds as the chimp presses symbols on a keyboard.

And while many and varied, all human languages possess a consistent fundamental order. Read the following quotes from other scientists on the topic, and perhaps you can see why the claims of researchers at Georgia State University must be looked at with a very critical eye.

'The grammar of a language is a system of transformational rules that determines a certain pairing of sound and meaning. It consists of a syntactic component, a semantic component, and a phonological component. The surface structure contains the information relevant to the phonological component, whereas the deep structure contains the information relevant to the semantic component, and the syntactic component pairs surface and deep structures. Hence, it is merely the phonological component of grammar that has become greatly differentiated during the course of human history, or at least since the construction of the Tower of Babel. The semantic component has remained invariant and is, therefore, the ‘universal’ aspect of the universal grammar, which all natural languages embody.'

[Stent, Gunther S., 'Limits to the Scientific Understanding of Man,' Science, vol. 187 (March 21, 1975) p.1054. Stent was Professor of Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley.]

Translated this means: Language is a system of rules that determine sound and meaning, and the sound component of language has become very diverse throughout human history (or at least since the Tower of Babel).

'It would seem likely that further light could be thrown on the evolution of human language by studying more and less complex human languages spoken today. However, while it is possible to find parts of one language that are simpler than the corresponding parts of another language, no evidence has ever been produced that would suggest that one particular language as spoken by modern humans is more or less complex than any other.'

[Matthews, Stephen, Bernard Comrie, and Marcia Polinsky, eds., Atlas of Languages: The Origin and Development of Languages throughout the World (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996), pp.11-12.]

'The so-called primitive languages can throw no light on language origins, since most of them are actually more complicated in grammar than the tongues spoken by civilized peoples.'

[Linton, Ralph, The Tree of Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955), p. 9.]

You decide what is believable!

— Judi Hahn & Dr Jonathan Sarfati

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