Many of those whose task it is to broker the truth of God to the people of God in the churches have now redefined the pastoral task such that theology has become an embarrassing encumbrance or a matter of which they have little knowledge; and many in the Church have now turned in upon themselves and substituted for the knowledge of God a search for the knowledge of self.
David Wells

The Comet Connection

The Comet Connection Volume 1, Number 4 December 1985 A publication for the members of SOR THE COMET CONNECTION I had decided that I was not going to be sucked into the over-

commercialization of a big ball of ice and dirt that flies by the earth millions of miles away once every 76 years or so. Then I attended a lecture by space engineer and amateur astronomer, Harrison Sarrafian.

Mr. Sarrafian pointed out that other comets with shorter cycle times have been observed to decrease in brightness as time goes on. This makes sense since it does not take much to deteriorate an ice ball hurling through space. The catch is that extrapolating these observed deterioration rates back in time 4.5 billion years results in the original comets having a mass several times that of our sun.

The question for evolutionists is where do comets come from if they did not originate with the solar system?

Several hypotheses were discussed
by Mr. Sarrafian, including the most popular which is a big pool of comets somewhere in the universe that occasionally kicks out a new comet. He also went on to discuss the obvious problems with most of the evolutionary scenarios.

An interesting source of documentation on the observed decay rates of comets is a paper entitled, Brightness in Changes in Periodic Comets by Fred L. Whipple and Diarmaid H. DouglasHamilton. If you would like a copy send $5.00 to Smithsonian Institution, Astrophysical Observatory Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 and ask for SAO Special Report Number 181, August 9, 1965.

Since Halley’s comet is such a media event, I suddenly realized that the comet could provide many opportunities to discuss theories of origins with people we come in contact with every day. So I ran out and bought some inexpensive 7×50 binoculars and copy of Astronomy magazine. So far I’ve been able to spot the comet 3 times. Its not much to look at right now, just a little fuzzy ball, but I’ll be ready for March and April when we are supposed to get the best view of Halley’s comet.

-Dennis Wagner, Executive Director

A TRIP TO SACRAMENTO

Textbook publishers have come under pressure from the California State Curriculum Commission to increase their coverage of evolution or face rejection of their science textbooks. Because of the national impact that California has on textbooks, we felt it was imperative to testify before the State Board of Education.

The focus of our testimony was the insufficiency of the neoDarwinian mechanism to account for anything but microevolution, and an explanation of how natural selection leads to stasis, not gradualism, on a macroevolutionary scale.

We recommended that the Board select textbooks that:

  1. clearly distinguish between microevolution and macroevolution.
  2. explain that the key features of the fossil record are stasis and sudden appearance.
  3. admit that a mechanism may not exist that can:
    1. overcome the stabilizing effects of natural selection on a macroevolutionary level.
    2. overcome the deleterious effects of mutation.
    3. overcome the genetic error correcting mechanisms found in genetic systems.
  4. expose our students to the serious problems that exist in

    evolutionary theory so that they will be motivated to develop better theories.

In addition, a copy of my essay “Resolving the conflicts between natural selection and paleontology” was provided to each member of the Board. The essay gave detailed documentation of the thesis that natural selection is a contributing factor to biological stasis.

The Board of Education voted 10-0 to reject the more than 20 textbooks under consideration unless coverage of evolution was increased.

Their justification was couched in terms of “quality of instructional materials.” Until the textbook writers admit the inadequacy of the current evolutionary mechanisms, and better explain what biologists and paleontologists know to be true regarding stasis, it is our opinion that “quality” will take a backseat to “quantity” in the textbook coverage of evolution in the near future.

A copy of my essay along with newspaper articles covering the textbook controversy are available to SOR members upon request.

  • Art Battson, Director of Campus Activities

NOTES FROM PETER GORDON

Recent work from Germany. Squids (Order Teuthoidea of the Class Cephalopoda) are among the most interesting and distinctive of the ocean’s animals, with their streamlined, torpedo-shaped bodies, and great variation in size (the Giant Squid, genus Architeuthis, can reach 24 meters in length).

Now a report in Nature, vol.
318: 53-55, 7 Nov. 1985, indicates that one form may be a “living fossil” as well. W. Sturmer has discovered a fossil in the Hunsruck slate (Lower Devonian) which is quite close in appearance to a living species of squid. The fossil, designated Eoteuthis elfriedae, “is very similar to the living Alloteuthis africana of the Loliginidae [a family of squids].” Sturmer continues: This specimen of E. elfriedae shows that Alloteuthis-like animals have not changed much over the past 400 Myr [million years], and means that previous concepts of the appearance of such forms must be revised.

Just another living fossil, you say? Maybe, but here are Sturmer’s concluding remarks: If we consider the timetable and the fact that the fossil record shows few closely related forms [of cephalopods], then more questions arise, especially as to the origin of these animals. How long did it take to evolve from a primitive nautiloid to Eoteuthis, and where might one hope to find connecting forms? A new history of the Creation/Evolution Controversy in

America. Edward J. Larson (Ph.D., History of Science, University of Wisconsin) has written a richly documented history of the American legal and legislative battles over the questions of origins.

The book, Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985, 222 pp.), may soon become a standard reference for the history of the debate. The text is scrupulously fair, and refreshingly free of the ridicule and ax-grinding which have often marred other books on the subject.

Larson, who also holds a law degree from Harvard, has as his central thesis the failure of law to resolve the controversy: Because the creation-evolution controversy remains unresolved in popular opinion, it could not be settled in law… In the long run…the law will be changed or ignored.”

Another book to watch for. Mary Midgley is a philosopher at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England who writes on human nature. Her newest book, Evolution as a Religion: Strange hopes and stranger fears, (London: Methuen, 1985, 196 pp.) is described by the publisher as follows: In this controversial study Mary Midgley takes issue with a number of bizarre scientific doctrines which are often mistakenly viewed as part of Darwin’s theory. While assessing the dangers inherent in such distortions, the book, though not an attack on science, raises important questions about the nature of both science and religion and their relation to each other. American publisher found. In my last “Notes” I mentioned a

new book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, by Australian molecular biologist Michael Denton; I was uncertain whether the book had an American publisher.

Well, I am pleased to report that Denton’s book will be published in April 1986 by Adler and Adler, Washington, D.C. I learned this from a “review” (the word is used loosely) in Nature (vol. 318: 124 – 125, 14 Nov. 1985), wherein Mark Ridley, a zoologist at Oxford, discusses three creationist books and one by Robert G.B. Reid, an evolutionist. One can almost predict what such a review will contain, and sure enough, there it is: creationists have “closed minds”; they “sift” through evolutionary writings, “seize upon bits that look like difficulties for Darwinism, and ignore everything else. Then, after surrounding the difficulties with schoolroom rhetoric, sub-Kuhnian psychobabble, and suitably simplified Victorian history, they send the whole to press.” (Sub-Kuhnian psychobabble?!)

Nowhere in the review does Ridley suggest that neo-Darwinism might–just might–be less than adequate as an explanation. He defends Darwin’s position (e.g. Darwin’s miserably ad hoc explanation of the gaps in the fossil record) with dogged consistency. So…let me encourage professor Ridley to take the train to Cambridge, and pay a visit to the lab of geneticist Gabriel Dover. Here’s what Dover might have to say” The writings of Darwin, and indeed those that contributed to the formulation of the neo-Darwinian synthesis in the 1930’s, are not Old Testament tracts to be pored over by the armchair exegesists. They cannot supply, without resorting to too many ad hoc assumptions, all the answers to the multiple causes of the ebb and flow of evolution…Physics moved on from Newton, and biology might need to move on from Darwin, if we are to explain, satisfactorily, all that we observe. (Dover, G. “Shadow boxing with Darwin” Nature, vol. 318: 19-20, 7 Nov. 1985)

Finally, let me encourage both Ridley and Dover to consider that biology might need to move on, not only from Darwin, but from the general theory of organic evolution as well.

  • Peter Gordon

This file originates from:

Origins Talk RBBS * (314) 821-1078 Missouri Association for Creation, Inc. 405 North Sappington Road Glendale, MO 63122-4729 (314) 821-1234 Also call: Students for Origins Research CREVO BBS (719) 528-1363