NATURALISM

THE MARK ARMITAGE LEGAL VICTORY AND A CLARION CALL FOR LAITY TO CARRY THE TORCH IN THE CREATION-EVOLUTION CONTROVERSY

November 8, 2016 by Tom Shipley

“If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the Devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”—Martin Luther

Creationists who work in academia or science research should not be lulled into a false sense of security because of the recent Mark Armitage legal victory against his persecutors at California State University Northridge. I am writing this article on the assumption that the reader has some knowledge of the Armitage case and his science research and publication. (For those of you who may have little or no knowledge of the case, a good sense of the case and its history can be gleaned at the following article links here, and here, and here, and here and here, and here, and the following video links hereand here.)

Armitage was the victim of religious discrimination and persecution perpetrated by Dr. Ernie Kwok and others at CSUN in the form of wrongful job termination because of his religious beliefs and the exercise of his free speech rights. Armitage’s legal and Constitutional rights were violated. Armitage sued and won. That’s wonderful. But let’s put this in perspective: one lone legal victory for a creationist in a State Court does not by any stretch of the imagination signal a reversal of the pervasive discrimination and persecution that has been perpetrated for many decades against many THOUSANDS of others who have never seen an iota of justice. As far as I am aware, Mark Armitage is one of a very small handful of Darwin doubters (that perhaps that can be numbered on one hand) to prevail in his battle against religious discrimination in American academia. Illegal discrimination, willful violation of Constitutional rights, and bigotry against creationists in the form of wrongful job termination goes on routinely and pervasively, perpetrated by, and with the blessing of, academia and our judicial establishments. The law simply does not matter to the academicians or to most of the judges ruling in most of these cases. The law itself is routinely treated as irrelevant.

We can rejoice, and I certainly do, that there has been a modicum of justice in the Armitage case. I don’t want to rain upon anybody’s parade. But what I want to know is this: why does Ernie Kwok (et al) still have a job at CSUN? If I understand the dynamics of the Armitage case as well as I think I do, Kwok was the prime perpetrator of religious discrimination against Mark Armitage. If Ernie Kwok and Armitage’s other persecutors still have their jobs (at taxpayer expense), then is not CSUN in principle still endorsing discrimination and persecution based upon religion?

The failure of CSUN to terminate the employment of faculty who have violated the fundamental Constitutional and civil rights of their fellow Americans declares that they are still committed to a policy of religious discrimination, especially against Christian creationists. They may have acquiesced to a particular battle they knew they could not win (and was simply too damaging because of its publicity) but they are still at war against all those who do not share their own religious faith in Naturalism. Make no mistake about that. So let’s stay the course and not get too heady about the Armitage victory.

The Mark Armitage case is significant for multiple reasons, one reason being that his case demonstrates the two principal modus operandii of the Darwinists in academia (what I refer to as the GDPM, the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine) and science research: 1) censorship and repression of information and 2) punishment against dissenters. Another reason the Armitage case is significant is because of the actual science at the root of it.

Make no mistake about it, Big Brother thought control, in the vein of Orwell’s 1984, is precisely what the Darwinists in academia seek to achieve. Freedom of inquiry in academia is a myth where it concerns the subject of evolution. The straw which broke the proverbial back of the camel in the Armitage case, the thing which exceeded the toleration level of the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine, was not “hellfire and damnation” preaching on campus, it was not a sermon on the book of Genesis and creation in the biology classroom. No, it was a peer-reviewed scientific article, titled “Soft sheets of fibrillar bone from a fossil of the supraorbital horn of the dinosaur Triceratops horridus,” by Armitage published in the prestigious Acta Histochemica containing straight reporting of raw data on his find of soft dinosaur tissue from a triceratops horn from the Hell Creek Formation in Glendive Montana. The truth screams aloud from such finds: to wit, “if it ain’t fossilized (permineralized), it ain’t millions of years old!” Crash goes the Darwinian and uniformitarian paradigms. The significance of this is not lost on the devotees of Naturalism and worshipers of their idol, evolution.

In the attempt to put an end to the dissemination of such knowledge, Armitage had to go. The American Inquisition and the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine, in the form of Dr. Ernie Kwok, et al, at California State University Northridge, leapt into action. Two weeks after the publication of Armitage’s article, Ernie Kwok, in Machiavellian fashion, engineered the firing of Mark Armitage from his job. Information which conflicts with the story-line of evolutionary and old earth fairy tales simply cannot be tolerated and neither can the people who publish such information.

Another example which exemplifies and demonstrates the extent of Orwellian thought control in our universities is that of Michael Behe, famous for his book, “Darwin’s Black Box.” Behe is famous for coining the phrase “irreducible complexity,” a feature of biological organisms which is a dead giveaway of intelligent design.

In a video production of the Discovery Institute, Behe makes some very eye-opening and significant comments:

At approximately 12:05 – 13:25 in the video, Behe staes:

“For the longest time I believed that Darwinian evolution explains what we saw in biology, not because I saw how it could actually explain it but because I was told that it did explain it. In schools I was taught Darwinian biology and through college and graduate school I was in an atmosphere which just assumed that Darwinian evolution explains biology and again I didn’t have any reason to doubt it. It wasn’t until…I read a book called “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis” by a geneticist by the name of Michael Denton, an Australian, and he put forward a lot of scientific arguments against Darwinian theory that I had never heard before, and the arguments seemed pretty convincing. At that point, I started to get a bit angry, because I thought I was being led down the primrose path. Here were a number of very good arguments and I had gone through a doctoral program in biochemistry, and became a faculty member and I had never even heard of these things.”—Michael Behe, emph. supp.

Behe’s comments here are worth dwelling upon at length to grasp their significance. Think about this: here is a scientist with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, a faculty member, who had never heard “a lot of scientific arguments” in the realm of his own specialty! And don’t think for one moment that Behe’s case is unusual. Behe’s experience of being kept in the dark and “led down the primrose path” (to use his own characterization) is typical of academia in general. As cynical as I am about the Darwinian academic establishment, this type of comment is still absolutely astounding to me. How is it remotely possible, one must ask in utter astonishment, to go through at least seven years of university training and be in total ignorance of an extensive body of knowledge, a lengthy detailed book full of pertinent information in one’s own discipline? That is mind-boggling to me and demonstrates the extent to which the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine engages in bona fide thought control and brainwashing of its disciples in our academic institutions. The paradigm, the model—in this case, commitment to a religious faith, Naturalism, and its supreme article of faith, evolution—takes priority over facts and data. If the empirical facts are contradictory, then damn the facts and—and don’t let any one else know.

Censorship reigns supreme in this regard, and don’t let any naysayer on this point deceive you with sophistries. This is all deliberate and conscious, as it certainly was in the Mark Armitage case. Like Stalin’s tyranny in Communist Soviet Russia, there are ongoing purges to cast out Darwin doubters, especially Christian creationists, from academia by systematic and pervasive denial of tenure, outright firings, demotions and campaigns of vilification directed against “scientific sinners.”

Persecution by the Darwinian establishment is real, and is well-exemplified in the cases of Mark Armitage and many others. These purges of academic dissidents are for the purpose of maintaining strict control of “scientific” orthodoxy (the “orthodoxy” in the case of evolution being pseudo-orthodoxy) and stamping out “science sin.” I like the observation of Stephen Jay Gould: “Academia is a den of vipers” (pg. 112, The Panda’s Thumb”). Anybody who believes we have “open inquiry” in academia is ignorant of the reality. The firing of Mark Armitage from his microscopist job at California State University Northridge because of his religion and his “creationist projects” is just one such example. Another is the demotion of Richard Sternberg (an evolutionist) at the Smithsonian Institution. Another is the firing of creationist David Coppedge at NASA because of his creationist beliefs (yes, even NASA terminates employees on the basis of their religious beliefs). Another is the firing of Guillermo Gonzalez from the University of Iowa because of his religious beliefs, specifically belief in ID. Another example is Dr. Caroline Crocker, author of “Free to Think,” who was purged out of George Mason University because of herbeliefs. These five examples are most emphatically not exceptions to the rule or anecdotes. They are drops in the ocean. The list of names goes on and on and on with mind-numbing endlessness. Just ask Jerry Bergman. (See his video presentation here, and the results of his investigation of censorship in academia here.)

Which brings me to my central point and conclusion in this article: the torch in the creationist movement needs to be carried, probably primarily, by knowledgeable LAITY, that is to say, those of us who are not employed in academia or science research and not vulnerable to termination of employment because of our religious beliefs. It is not enough to just sit back and expect academicians and research scientists to speak up and publish relevant material. As in the Mark Armitage case, speaking up can carry a heavy price, and most will simply remain silent. Until the active hostility and persecution against Darwin doubters in academia changes, there will continue to be a severe dearth of degreed professionals doing this work. Most (if not nearly everyone) in vulnerable positions in academia and science research will not dare to risk their jobs and their professional and academic accreditation. Even those who are willing to endure persecution regarding themselves will seldom be willing to subject their families to such severe life disruption.

For those who are in academia and science research and who ARE willing to take the associated risks, Armitage lays out the program. In a personal communication with me about this matter, Armitage states:

“I do agree with your point that the laity needs to carry this torch…(T)he pattern I have laid out is an easy one to follow if people are willing to do the work to follow it. As I say I took the time to learn my craft. I got off the path of being an expert microscopist for the microscope companies and got onto the path of Academia. I went back to school and learned electron microscopy. I then sought employment in Academia with my highly honed unique skills. There will always be need for microscopists so I have set a pattern that others who are skilled in biology or chemistry can follow. Next I sought employment at universities who are looking for a microscopist. Sadly I was thrown out of Azusa Pacific University for being a literalist on Genesis. But the settlement they gave me for wrongful termination was enough to buy my own electron microscopes. Then I had the opportunity to work for a State University and I gave full disclosure in my interview about being a creationist and being a Christian. Because I had a publication history, a secular publication history they hired me on the spot. Then I excelled at my craft for the University and won the hearts of 95% of the professors there. So I’ve established a pattern that others can follow, and we need to do this. The only way we can get through to the professionals and the millennials is to have a track record of excellence in The Sciences. So yes the laity need to take up the torch but they need to follow the pattern that I have laid down.

“I only got a master’s degree and look at how far the Lord took me. But you are right we need Christians to get their Ph.Ds and learn these skills and get hired in universities where they have access to the research equipment and can do the studies. Then they will be effective…This is the front line of this battle and we need the laity to step up to jump in and to follow the pattern that I have established.”

Featured image credit: Godinanutshell.com

THE SEARCH FOR ET & THE DISCOVERY OF EXTRASOLAR PLANETS

October 1, 2016 by Tom Shipley

The search for intelligently created radio transmission signals from extraterrestrial life forms began in earnest in 1960 and has continued more or less uninterrupted since then. Result as of July 2014: ZERO. (Update: Result as of March 2015: ZERO). (Update: Result as of October 2016: ZERO, with 1 false alarm)

Arecibo Radio Telescope Puerto Rico

When this line of investigation began 55 years ago, all estimates of how many planets there were in the cosmos were pure speculation. Statistical guesstimates, assuming the “mediocrity” of our own solar system, postulated that there ought to be billions of planets in the Milky Way alone, although it was impossible to say how many billions—or if, alternatively, our solar system with 9 planets (Pluto was still classified as a planet at the time) was just some kind of quirk or anomaly. For all anyone knew, stars with planets could be an extreme rarity. There was just simply no science to validate or invalidate any of the theories. All estimates were based upon statistical probabilities. Odds were (if you were of the Humanist religion and believed in randomness) in the minds of secular astronomers, that THIS field of investigation would be the one to put the final nail in the coffin of those who believed that the earth was some special place created by some deity.

What was–even then–no theory but an empirical fact was this: with vaster and vaster stretches of the heavens being scanned for intelligently created transmissions in hundreds of thousands of channels, there was an almost chilling silence “out there.” This line of investigation seemed destined to prove the existence of ET out there somewhere—or, most likely, here and there and everywhere. The implications and significance of the complete lack of such findings has been slowly pressing itself upon the secular scientists as time has marched on.

Assuming a naturalistic origin of the universe, and assuming that random chemical processes were the cause of the origin and rise of life, the conclusion seemed inevitable: there MUST be multiple BILLIONS of technologically advanced civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy alone based upon even the most restrictive of scenarios. But if this were so, then the earth ought to be positively DRENCHED in intelligently created radio signals from alien civilizations. Why then the deafening SILENCE screaming at the astronomers from the cosmos?

Secular astronomers believe the universe to be about 15 billion years old, and the earth to be about 4 billion years old. The statistical implications, based upon their premises, are inevitable: there MUST be billions of advanced civilizations, and, therefore, a significant number of radio transmissions from such civilizations reaching the earth. Yet, though about 20% of the expanse of the sky has been thoroughly scrutinized for such signals, 55 years of searching has produced not a single such transmission.

This is very troubling to the secular scientists. The source of the problem, of course, lies in the religious faith of the secularists. And make no mistake about it, their secularism is a religious faith. Their religion is false. The universe did not have a naturalistsic origin, it was created by a Creator. And it is simply IMPOSSIBLE for living organisms to arise on their own by chance chemical processes. As Michael Behe has pointed out (see “Darwin’s Black Box“, living organisms are comprised of IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX systems at the sub-cellular level. One of the simplest of these is the cilia of protozoans, those hairlike projections that enable locomotion for one celled organisms. These cilia are essentially machines organically attached to the organisms, essentially outboard motors consisting of 39 separate components, all of which are necessary for the functioning of the organism, and without which it cannot survive. Any one of these components attached to the organism alone would be fatal. The coming together of all 39 of these components at 1) the same time and 2) the same place and 3) in just the right sequence is ultimately an idiotic and moronic suggestion.

Conclusion: a staggeringly sophisticated intelligence created life. The truth of this proposition is empirically obvious in the make-up of living organisms but you simply cannot reason with the blind faith of the secularists. They will cling to their secular religion NO MATTER WHAT. And they will labor ceaselessly to devise “explanations” to account for every empirical fact disproving their cherished dogmas, e.g., see the article “The Fermi Paradox,” here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox.

But back to extrasolar planets: as the truth regarding the LACK of intelligently created radio transmissions from the cosmos began to become an established fact of reality, the secularists began to devise alternate explanations to mitigate the embarrassment of this failed and fruitless line of investigation (not that they are not still hoping against hope after all these years).

One of the proffered explanations was that maybe stars with planets are an extreme rarity after all, our solar system being an oddball. And since the rarity of stellar planetary systems was at least plausible, this provided a plausible explanation as to why no such radio signals have been detected. Planetary systems might be rare and, hence, intelligent life in the cosmos rare also. This is the needle in the haystack explanation. The universe seemed simply too large and the distances between the stars too vast to offer any prospect of shedding any light on this question within the lifetime of anyone living. This “explanation” seemed to provide a plausible “escape hatch” against the obvious implications of the negative results of the SETI program(s).

However, God has a way of confounding fools. In 1992, the first extrasolar planets were indeed detected.

The three known planets of the star HR8799, imaged by the Hale Telescope. The light from the central star was blanked out by a vector vortex coronagraph.

Quoting the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet):

The first confirmed detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12.[11] The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Due to improved observational techniques, the rate of detections has increased rapidly since then.[5]

Star AB Pictoris Image with Large Planet or Brown Dwarf

How rapidly? Quoting again:

As of 21 June 2013, a total of 893 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, including a few that were confirmations of controversial claims from the late 1980s.[5] That count includes 696 planetary systems, of which 133 are multiple planetary systems.[UPDATE: AS OF July 22, 2014, there are 1,811 confirmed exoplanets discovered in 1,126 planetary systems.] Kepler-16 contains the first discovered planet that orbits around a binary star system.[38] [UPDATE: as of 1 September 2016, there have been 3,518 exoplanets in 2,635 planetary systems and 595 multiple planetary systems confirmed.]
As of February 2012, NASA’s Kepler mission had identified 2,321 planetary candidates associated with 1,790 host stars, based on the first sixteen months of data from the space-based telescope.

Scatterplot showing masses and orbital periods of all extrasolar planets discovered through 2010-10-03, with colors indicating method of detection: green:transit, blue:timing, red: direct imaging, brown: microlensing, pale green: astrometry

And:

Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) reported in January 2013, that “at least 17 billion” Earth-sized exoplanets are estimated to reside in the Milky Way galaxy.

If a planet is detectable by both the radial-velocity and the transit methods, then both its true mass and its radius can be found. The planet’s density can then be calculated.

These projects are in their infancy and these are the confirmed results thus far. So, the commonality of planets around other stars is now an empirical, observable fact! The number of probable planets detected as of June 2013, based upon all of the detection methods, is about 4,500, the vast majority of them within 300 light years of earth.

The statistical conclusion of the “mediocrity” of our solar system has turned out to be correct regarding the number of planets in the universe. Planetary systems are the rule, not the exception. The universe, it turns out, is positively teeming with planets-hundreds of billions of them in our own Milky Way galaxy. This fact only serves to intensify the apparent “discrepancy” (the “Fermi Paradox”) regarding the lack of radio signals coming from ET when there ought (on naturalistic premises) to be billions (or at least millions) of such separate such signals reaching the earth.

The secularists have a serious problem here…a very, very, very serious problem. Will they re-examine their fundamental religious faith undergirding their speculations in the light of these facts? Don’t hold your breath.

The simple fact is that these empirical findings of modern astronomy are consistent with the biblical declarations of the nature and origin of the universe and utterly inconsistent with the prevailing secular view of “what ought to be” based upon their secularistic premises. But don’t expect such a candid admission to be announced on the next episode of Nova, or National Geographic, or Nature, or any other vested establishment media outlet. The makers of these programs, to say nothing of the powers-that-be in our educational systems, are anything but candid. We are already getting their “spin” on these findings of modern astronomy. (See “The Fermi Paradox” at Wikipedia.) They are denying that their ship is sinking and, like a faithful captain of a ship, they will hold out to the end and go down with their ship.

The following Wikipedia articles, along with some related links and searches, are the source of my information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

LIBERALISM, EVOLUTION AND ORIGINAL SIN

August 23, 2016 by Tom Shipley

Adan and Eve Expelled from the Garden — Adam and Eve Expelled from the Garden

The Western world today typically divides itself into one of two camps in a multitude of arenas, typically identifying themselves either as “liberal” or “conservative.” But what do these words, “liberal” and “conservative,” actually mean and denote in terms of the actual, real underlying ideological forces animating and driving them?

I am here to tell you something you will never hear on any major television network or any major news network: the inner fundamental essence of modern so-called “liberalism,” political, religious and otherwise, is philosophical atheism. This philosophical atheism is not rationally derived as its proponents would like everyone to believe. Rather, it is the outworking and manifestation of a psychopathology–original sin. The particulars of this psychopathology have been codified by believers in the religion of Naturalism, complete with a sectarian Confession of Faith (see The Humanist Manifesto of 1933).

Original sin in the Biblical sense is, at its deepest root and core, the drive and impulse to autonomy (i.e., “auto” = self, and “nomos” = law), that is, the will to be a law unto one’s own self, which is, practically speaking, the drive to be one’s own God in defiance of the only true and eternal Law Giver.

Modern conservatism, in its essence, is grounded in the proposition that there is a God (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created…”), the Creator, and that He is the ground and source of all objective morality and ethics. This was the faith of virtually all of the Founding Fathers of America, regardless of what their personal fidelity may have been, and it is the reason why Jesus Christ is referred to in Article VII of The Constitution of the United States of America as “our Lord.” Virtually all of the conflict within the Western world (and much of the rest of the world, for that matter) is the outworking and manifestation of these two opposing forces. There are a multitude of variations and shades and places along the spectrum, but never doubt that this dichotomy is the central core of all the conflict; these are the two opposing poles from which all of the other particulars flow.

The favorite and most cherished dogma of the faithful devotees of Liberalism (notice I have now switched to a capital “L”) is Evolution. Next to the proposition of atheism itself, Evolution is “liberals” most dearly beloved Article of Faith. Make no mistake about it, Liberalism is a religion (its real name is Naturalism), and Evolution is veritably an Article of Faith. It is founded upon unproven and unprovable philosophical presuppositions about the ultimate nature of reality and is at variance and conflict with all empirical knowledge (one example of which I will get to below),

There are many deceivers among the faithful of this religion who actively try to subvert the faith of theists. You run into them in almost every corner saying, “I believe in God and I also believe in Evolution.” When you hear a man say such a thing, mark that man as a liar. Such a man is dishonest to the core.

It behooves every Christian, at some point in life, preferably earlier, to devote a significant portion of time to the study of the Creation-Evolution controversy to the point where the highlights of the issue can be accurately articulated to others. (I have created a YouTube page with a collection of videos which you can think of as a kind of quick crash course on the subject and I will include a list of recommended reading at the end of this article.)

In particular, and perhaps primarily, every Christian should be aware that the fossil record emphatically does NOT give evidence in support of the evolutionary religion, a fact evolutionists know and confess themselves (or not, if they think the general public is listening in). Charles Darwin’s prediction that the (in his day) fairly young discipline of archaeology-paleontology would in time uncover the multiplied thousands or millions of minute variations that “must” have lead from one species to another has failed – and failed miserably. The only thing that can be found in the fossil record are distinct species. Period. Living organisms are all biologically isolated at the species level. And absolutely no one, especially any paleontologist, now holds out any hope at all that any line of nearly infinite gradations ever WILL be found, Charles Darwin’s failed prediction notwithstanding. There are, of course, variations within species, but all varieties of the cat species, for example, are distinct and biologically isolated from all varieties of the dog species, and all varieties of cattle, and all varieties of horses, etc. (For obvious reasons, I accept neither the nomenclature nor the classification scheme of modern taxonomy or “cladism.”)

Consider this extraordinarily revealing admission from Niles Eldredge, the preeminent paleontologist from Columbia University who, along with Harvard’s Stephen J. Gould and Johns Hopkins’ Steven M. Stanley, brought the evolutionary establishment into the new age of “punctuated equilibrium”:

“We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while really knowing that it does not.” –quoted by Philip E. Johnson in “Darwin on Trial,” pg. 59, from Eldredge’s book, “Time Frames.” —emph. supp.

Dear reader, did you get that? This is a candid admission from an evolutionary insider at the very top of the evolutionary academic establishment, an evolutionist of evolutionists, that the entire evolutionary establishment has not been honest about the facts of their profession!!! There is no apology here, just a simple reporting of the fact!

Eldredge elaborates further:

“Each new generation, it seems, produces a few young paleontologists eager to document examples of evolutionary change in their fossils. The changes they have always looked for have, of course, been of the gradual, progressive sort. More often than not their efforts have gone unrewarded–their fossils, rather than exhibiting the expected pattern, just seem to persist virtually unchanged…This extraordinary conservatism looked, to the paleontologist keen on finding evolutionary change, as if no evolution had occurred. The studies documenting conservative persistence rather than evolutionary change were considered failures, and, more often than not, were not even published.”–emph. supp.

Bear in mind, this is not a biblical creationist speaking but one of the high priests of the evolutionary academic establishment. Eldredge’s oblique reference to the studies that never were published refers, in many cases, to the fact that the paleontologists were not able to get their studies published due to the stringent and pervasive evolutionary censorship mechanism in place in the academic world. It starts with self-censorship motivated by fear: if you are able by some miracle to get past the strict peer review process which is under the control of the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine, publication of such studies places one in jeopardy of being refused application for Ph.D. programs, denial of Ph.D.s after being earned, loss or denial of tenure, de-funding of one’s department, or even job termination if one is brash enough to publish studies contrary to evolutionary dogma in defiance of the evolutionary establishment.

It cannot be stressed too strongly that this total and complete lack of any intermediate forms is not a guess, it is not speculation, it is not deduction; it is empirical fact. Those who continue to adhere to the evolutionary religion are painfully aware of this reality. This is why since the 1970’s more and more of those of this religion have converted in droves to the “Punctuated Equilibrium” model of evolution.

For those not familiar with all of this, basically Punctuated Equilibrium (or Equilibria) says that biological organisms go on for thousands and millions of generations without changing very much until —voila!, rabbits out of the hat!–suddenly, and without any recognizable cause, virtually miraculous transformations take place over a relatively short period of time, leading to all sorts of new species. Evolutionists call it “allopatric speciation”—as if giving the concept an academic-sounding name somehow bestows more credibility upon the concept. Basically, it is the idea that evolution happens in quick bursts of “adaptive radiation” over a relatively short period of time in small populations that get isolated from the parent group and evolve separately, and this is supposedly why transitional forms are never found in the fossil record. Moreover, punctuated equilibrium is basically equivocation as far as the dialogue about evolution is concerned, confusing and conflating a real phenomenon (variation within species) with an imaginary one (fundamental transformation into different kinds of organisms). This is basically where the academic evolutionary establishment hangs its proverbial hat today.

It should be noted that this new brand of evolutionary thinking did not come about due to any additional evidence whatsoever. It is simply a reinterpretation of the existing fossil and geological data on the part of evolutionists trying to explain WHY there is no indication of evolution in the fossil record (or among living organisms, for that matter: why don’t we see any existing sequential spectrum of life among living organisms? Why isn’t the living world of species one great blur?). This is true even if the geologic strata containing fossils is interpreted as representing long geological ages in the millions of years, rather than the obvious interpretation that they are the result of rapid deposition over a short period of time as a result of a flood.The evolutionists have been struggling greatly with this lack of evidence all along and the proposition of some kind of rapid evolution was proposed, to my knowledge, as long ago as 1940 by renowned geneticist Richard Goldschmidt, whose theory was self-dubbed as the “hopeful monster” theory. Goldschmidt was very severely ridiculed and ostracized by his contemporary evolutionists, the scientific and educational establishments, for introducing this heresy into their religious dogma. After all, everyone “knew” that evolution happened by innumerable small gradations over millions and billions of years.

Ironically, what the proponents of Punctuated Equilibrium have done is to introduce magic and the miraculous into their schema! There are some who remain faithful to the old Darwinian gradualism despite the lack of fossil evidence but the inertia within the ranks of the evolutionary religion is definitely in this direction. After all, the fossil record has to be explained (away) somehow and the stasis of organisms found there is simply too embarrassing for evolutionists. Some explanation is needed no matter how preposterous. They would rather believe another lie, or a variation of the lie, than embrace the obvious truth that there never has been any evolution of one species into another. (The implications are just too unacceptable!) The sheer weight and magnitude of this empirical and factual consideration, and its obvious relevance to the issue, and the nature of the schema to avoid the obvious meaning and implications of the lack of transitional forms, reveals the nature of the denial as a psychopathology. There is simply no rational reason to believe in evolution on the part of anyone actually acquainted with the science of the matter. The underlying cause of this evasion of reality is a moral and ethical sickness, the manifestation of original sin.

THE SPECIOUSNESS OF “THE ORIGIN”

June 27, 2016 by Tom Shipley

Welcome to Creation Chronicles! I am Tom Shipley.

Beginning with this article, I will be posting, God willing, weekly articles regarding the creation-evolution controversy. So who is Tom Shipley? I am a former atheist and evolutionist and a former believer in an old earth and an old universe in my college years, now a young earth creationist. I went through a short period of being an old-earth creationist many years ago. Funny what an open mind, and a willingness to follow the empirical data, and a diligent single-minded effort to discover truth for yourself will do to you!

This site will be dedicated in part to dispelling the systematic and pervasive censorship, and countering the “spin,” of the GDPM, the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine, with the goal in mind of helping to also end the persecution of Darwin doubters which is pervasive throughout academia, government, and scientific research in any role even remotely touching upon the subject of evolution. (One of my “favorite” examples of censorship perpetrated by the GDPM may be found here.) I also have a YouTube page featuring a compilation of what I regard as some of the best videos on the subject. Those are all the works of other people. In that venue, I have tried to bring together in as short a compilation as possible some of the best and most informative videos on the subject. To date I have compiled 55 videos on the subject.

I have no delusions that I will single-handedly end the rampant censorship and persecution that exists. I, as an individual (with a little help from some friends) can only contribute my small humble part. What I can promise the follower of this site is that if you will follow along, read what I post, and follow up on the links provided, you will get a good education about this subject. I am not much one for inconsequential stuff, trivial and peripheral issues. I prefer the substantive and pivotal issues and information. There won’t be much “fluff and puff” here, maybe a smidgin of humor here and there.

I intend to be plain-spoken and pull no punches in this venue. “Professional deference” is all well and fine among scientists dealing with raw data and research, but in view of the rampant censorship and pervasive persecution perpetrated by the GDPM, the time is long past for treating veritable evildoers as if they are angels who have dropped down fresh from heaven.

On a technical note, the look of this website is going to be changing a bit as I go along and as I learn the particulars of how to manage the look and layout of this site. This site is essentially still under construction. Time constraints and lack of familiarity with the apps and programs at my disposal have prevented me from making this site as polished and professional as I would like, at least for now. I am more concerned about substantive CONTENT, and it is my prayer that the Lord God, the Creator of all things, will use my meager efforts here to lead you, my visitor, into the truths of His Creation.

The Speciousness of “The Origin”

In 1859 a now very famous book was published by Charles Darwin. Its title: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.” Not many people are aware of the full title and evolutionists are embarrassed to highlight it.

Original Title page to "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life" by Charles Darwin — Original Title page to “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life” by Charles Darwin

The book was (and is) especially popular in England and America because it provided both a pseudo-scientific motivation and justification for British imperialism (upon which the sun never set) and American racism dealing with the slavery issue. It was also instantly absorbed into the political ideologies of Communism and Socialism which were expressions of the philosophy of dialectical materialism.

The Rev. Rousas J Rushdoony rightly observes:

“Two of the most interested readers of Darwin were Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. They wrote very happy letters one to another welcoming the publication of Darwin’s book. Their reason was very simple; with Darwin they felt socialism and communism had become inevitable. [00:05:57]
“While previously they were espousing a somewhat esoteric faith…they now felt and rightly so that with the adoption of Darwin’s theory as science, as the faith of modern man, socialism and communism were inevitable. They were right. Let us analyze why, because I think it is imperative for us to realize that there is no fighting socialism in all its forms, pagan or Marxist, unless we undercut the impact and the affect and the roots thereof, the theory of evolution. Now the theory of evolution teaches us that the world is a universe of chance, not of law. That natural selection or the survival of the fittest brings about the change of the species and the development of living things. In other words, it tells us that this is a dog eat dog universe, that its war between man and man, between species and species.”
http://www.pocketcollege.com/beta/index.php?title=The_Influence_of_Socialism_in_American_Education_(Q_and_A)_-_RR151A2#While_previously_they_were_espousing_a_somewhat_esoteric

In his book, “From Darwin to Hitler,” Richard Weikart notes:

“After reading Darwin’s Origin of Species, Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels, ‘Although developed in a coarse English manner, this is the book that contains the foundation in natural history for our view’.”–pg.4, emph. supp.

When Lenin and the Communists of the USSR and China boasted of themselves as “scientific socialists,” and murdered scores of millions of people, it was Darwin’s “The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life” which they had in mind. When Hitler and his murderous National Socialist Party compatriots set their sights on creating the master race and exterminating or enslaving all other races, it was “The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life” that lay ominously in the background providing both the motivation and justification for their schemes. This claim incenses evolution’s modern devotees, but it is a simple historical fact.

Darwin himself maintained,

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.” This quote is from Darwin’s subsequent book, “The Descent of Man.”

It is my contention that the part Darwin’s book has played in sociology and politics has been far, far more influential than the part it has played in science. What tangible difference has Darwin’s theory of evolution actually made in the way that scientific research is done? As far as I can see, it has been utterly irrelevant or possibly obstructive. When academicians cite Darwin’s book, they virtually always abbreviate the title as simply “Origin,” or “The Origin,” or “The Origin of Species.” This present article is not about sociology, but about the natural sciences. However, the part Darwin’s book has played in sociology and politics should be always kept in mind by the reader. To that end, from now on, when I cite “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection OR The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life,” I shall abbreviate the title simply as “Favored Races,” or “The Preservation of Favored Races” to give the book its most appropriate emphasis.

Lest the secular reader object that I would, after all, maintain such a viewpoint being a biblical creationist, let me point out that Fred Hoyle, one of the most eminent scientists of the 20th century and hardly a biblical creationist, observed pretty much the same thing. Hoyle wrote:

“The modern point of view that survival is all has its roots in Darwin’s theory of biological evolution through natural selection. Harsh as it may seem, this is an open charter for any form of opportunistic behavior. Whenever it can be shown with reasonable plausibility that even cheating and murder would aid the survival either of ourselves personally or the community in which we happen to live, then orthodox logic enjoins us to adopt these practices, just because there is no morality except survival…

“…the nihilistic philosophy which so-called educated opinion chose to adopt following the publication of The Origin of Species committed mankind to a course of automatic self-destruction. A Doomsday machine was then set ticking.”–The Intelligent Universe, pg. 8-9

The evolutionary Doomsday machine is very much responsible for the attempted genocide and murder of six million Jews in Nazi Germany and the many tens of millions of others killed in World war II, tens of millions more under Soviet Communism and roughly 50 million Chinese butchered under Chinese Communism–all in the name of “scientific (read evolutionary) Socialism.”

Three Things Darwin Knew: (or why his book was and is specious)

1. When Charles Darwin published Favored Races, Darwin knew, and paleontologists reminded him, that not one single clear, intermediate form had ever been found in the fossils linking one kind of organism with another. There were simply no empirical connecting links, for example, between fish and amphibians, or anything else (although there was no shortage of proposed linkages; the famous coelacanth, supposed to be extinct for 70 million years, was proposed as such until living ones, 100% fish and 0% amphibian, started showing up live in the Indian Ocean). This problem of lack of clear chain of descent became more and more intensely acute over time culminating in the punctuated equilibria revolution of Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge and Steven Stanley who confessed publicly that the complete and total LACK of intermediate forms in the fossil record was “the trade secret of paleontology.” The cat is out of the bag and the jig is up!

2. When Darwin wrote Favored Races, Darwin knew of the empirical demonstration of the non-transmutability of species (kinds). Darwin was himself an avid breeder of pigeons and consulted other breeders of all sorts, maintaining copious notes, and was well aware that there were inherent limits (a “species barrier“) to what even intelligently guided selection by man could accomplish. Darwin knew that empirical science demonstrated that variation is an intra-species phenomenon; cats are always cats no matter how much variation exists among them, dogs are always dogs no matter how much variation exists among them, cattle are always cattle, horses are always horses, etc. (See Darwin Retried by Norman MacBeth, pg. 29-38). MacBeth observes:

“Despite strenuous efforts for two or three centuries, it has never been possible to produce a blue or black tulip. Darwin himself knew in 1844 that most authors assumed there were limits to variation, and he also knew that among pigeons the crossing of highly bred varieties was apt to provoke a reversion to ‘the ancient rock pigeon’.”—pg. 33, emph. supp.

In view of Darwin’s knowledge of the history of breeding experiments (which was considerable) Darwin’s famous citation of variations among finch beaks (which are all one species and whose varieties have been observed interbreeding) on the Galapagos Islands was simply baseless subterfuge—the utilization of an utterly trivial and irrelevant characteristic in relation to the hypothesis of macroevolution. Intraspecies variation should not even be called “evolution” except in the generic sense that “evolution” simply means change. Intraspecies variation certainly is not “evolution” in the common usage and understanding of the term which is essentially the idea of the common ancestry of all living beings.

3. When Darwin wrote Favored Races, Darwin knew of the irreducibly complex nature of the myriads of features of living organisms. This aspect of living organisms was, even in Darwin’s time, the chief objection that biologists had against Darwin’s proposed mechanism of evolution (see Koestler, Janus, pg. 165, etc.). Michael Behe may have popularized the phrase “irreducible complexity” in our time (see “Darwin’s Black Box“) but the concept and empirical observation of it has troubled biologists, especially evolutionists, from the first day that Darwin’s book rolled off the printing press. The idea is nothing new.

Living organisms consist of functionally interdependent components and a random mutation of one character would require a corresponding random mutation of multiple other characters at the same time to produce a living, functioning organism, and this is something that random chance simply cannot do—not in a thousand years, not in multiplied trillions of trillions of years. Time is, in fact, a dis-integrating and dis-organizing factor and makes evolution more and more unlikely with each passing moment due to the absolute necessity for simultaneous coordination of changes in interrelated systems. Yet Darwin’s hypothesis of random mutations accumulating to produce new species requires millions of years just to produce the number of mutations necessary. This is the proverbial “800 pound gorilla” that has been sitting in the Darwinist’s living room staring them in the face all along and with which they have steadfastly refused to come to terms. This metaphor of the 800 pound gorilla sitting in the evolutionists’ living room is more aptly switched to something much more immense—let’s say Mount Everest sitting on top of their house. This consideration, all by itself, formally and conclusively falsifies Darwin’s speculations.

These things that Darwin knew when he wrote Favored Races, and was very well acquainted with, are good justification for re-titling his book as The Speciousness of ‘The Origin’. It is my judgment that in the face of these things which Darwin knew he had no compelling justification whatsoever to promote his hypothesis as anything more than a very tentative musing. The wonder is that Darwin’s musings ever got off the ground to begin with. There were very compelling and formidable logical and scientific considerations weighing very heavily against it, even in his own day. The acuteness of these problems has multiplied exponentially since then—indeed, it is no exaggeration to say astronomically. Anyone who doubts this should read Michael Denton’s book, “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis,” and Richard Milton’s “Shattering the Myths of Darwinism,” and Stephen Meyer’s “Darwin’s Doubt.” (Neither Denton nor Milton are biblical creationists, by the way. Both are agnostics. Meyer, though a professing Christian, is neither a young earth creationist nor much of a Biblicist, as far as I can tell.)

Darwin certainly had no rational or scientific justification for regarding the hypothesis of evolution as anything other than a very tentative speculation or, in the words of Scrooge explaining the source of the apparition of the ghost of Christmas past, the result of “an undone potato, an undigested bit of beef” during a state of insomnia. It was the social forces of the times, especially the lure of a justification for the claim of racial superiority of the white man and of British imperialism, not scientific validity that catapulted Darwin’s hypothesis to the status of a golden calf to be bowed down to and worshipped. This is why Favored Races was so eagerly gobbled up in England and America. Oh…and one other reason: in the words of Aldous Huxley,

“For myself…the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation…We objected to morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.” (Quoted by Don Boys, Ph. D., in Evolution: Fact, Fraud or Faith?, pg. 53, from Huxley’s Ends and Means–pg. 312-315, 316.

Boys continues, “(O)n a television show when (Huxley) was asked why evolution was so readily accepted…replied that evolutionists accepted Darwinism even without proof because they didn’t want God to interfere with their sexual mores.”

I once saw D. James Kennedy from the pulpit report that he had seen the Huxley interview himself and reported exactly the same statement as Don Boys reports in his book.

Evolution is simply an idol, the graven image of the religion of Naturalism, which is little more than the modern version of the cult of Bacchus.

SCIENTIFICALLY, naturalistic evolution is as dead as the dodo bird, as extinct as the tyrannosaurus. Knowledgeable scientists know that the hypothesis of natural evolution has reached an impenetrable impasse. We are privileged to live at such a time to witness evolution’s demise. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. Evolution, as a “scientific” postulate, has not been able to withstand the relentless onslaught of scientific progress and knowledge (not that it ever had much to commend it to begin with). First, the debunking of spontaneous generation by Louis Pasteur laid to rest the idea of the natural ORIGIN of life; second, the empirical demonstration of the non-transmutability of species through natural means by the fruit fly experiments of T. H. Morgan and others beginning in 1909 proved false the idea of naturally-occurring mutations creating viable new species; third, the growing realization, culminating in the punctuated equilibria hypothesis of Gould and Eldredge, that no transitional forms would EVER be found in the fossil record or ever did exist; fourth, the unanswerable fact of irreducible complexity of living organisms showing intelligent design and creation of life; fifth, the explosion of knowledge in genetics in recent years revealing specified coded information has supercharged the manifestation of the reality of intelligent design of living organisms to the point of juggernaut status…and on and on and on it goes. Evolution has a rather impressive resume of failures guaranteed to grant anyone entrance into the U of L (University of Losers).

INSTITUTIONALLY, on the other hand, evolution hangs on like a brain-dead patient in the Intensive Care Unit of a hospital, sustained on life support by the vast taxpayer-funded revenues fueling the GDPM (Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine) of our government education system, and its ignorant dupes in the media who have been brainwashed by that same machine. The main purpose of the GDPM at this point in time is to CONCEAL from the general public the true status of evolution, TO SUPPRESS AND REPRESS INFORMATION (If you don’t believe me, just ask Mark Armitage.), or to create its own Public Relations spin on the information in those unfortunate circumstances where the information manages to attract popular interest and overflow out onto the streets. There is, after all, a lot of loot to be had, a lot of pillaged public money flowing in their direction to be protected, and that is perceived as justification enough for a few “white lies.” Evolution as a science is effectively dead and has become little more than a great con job and swindle.

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THE MARK ARMITAGE LEGAL VICTORY AND A CLARION CALL FOR LAITY TO CARRY THE TORCH IN THE CREATION-EVOLUTION CONTROVERSY

THE SEARCH FOR ET & THE DISCOVERY OF EXTRASOLAR PLANETS

LIBERALISM, EVOLUTION AND ORIGINAL SIN

THE SPECIOUSNESS OF “THE ORIGIN”

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