Creationism emails from a JW

by TheStumbler 42 Replies latest watchtower bible

TheStumbler

Earlier this year, I received an email from a JW family member with a link to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1RUhkgqjug

i wrote a long reply debunking the video (mostly copying TalkOrigins info). I apologise about the formatting but here was my reply:

Hi, thanks for the video

I'll try and quickly address each claim in the video but you'll have to forgive me for the length of this email. Unfortunately a lie can be easily contained in a single sentence but explaining a misconception and exposing a lie can take hundreds of words. I've tried to keep it as brief as possible.

1. The video claims that Darwin considered the lack of fossil evidence problematic for his theory:

'but, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?' - (Origin of Species, 1859).

Darwin's words are taken out of context. The full text reveals that Darwin posed this question rhetorically and answered it in the very next sentence:

'It will be more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been imperfectly made, and only at long intervals of time' - (Origin of Species, 1859).

Darwin did not say that there were no transitional fossils, he only claimed that there were not the 'innumerable' amount that some might expect. He correctly explained that this is an artefact of having an incomplete fossil record.

2. The video quotes Duane Gish as claiming that no transitional fossils have ever been found.

This is demonstrably false. I know of two transitional fossils off the top of my head; Tiktaalik and archaeopteryx. Gish was not a palaeontologist; he was a biochemist and a Young Earth Creationist. While he was alive, Gish was well known for repeating false claims against evolution, even repeating claims that he had previously acknowledged as being false. He was a liar and had scientific expertise or credibility on the fossil record.

3. The video quotes Tom kemp to support its claim that no transitional fossils exist:

'In no single adequately documented case is it possible to trace a transition, species by species, from one genus to another'

This quote is accurate in itself but misleading in the context it is presented in. Note that Kemp does not say that there are no transitional fossils. He says that there is no complete ‘species-to-species’ sequence from one genus to another. A genus is a higher level of taxonomy than species.

I emailed Tom Kemp to clarify this qoute. Here is my email

Dear Mr Kemp,

I don't know if you are aware but several creationist websites and
videos are citing your work (Kemp, T.S. 1982.Mammal-like reptiles and
the origin of mammals. Academic Press) to support their claims that no
transitional fossils exist. They reference you as stating that '...in no single adequately
documented case is it possible to trace a transition, species by
species, from one genus to another'. I am not sure if the reference is accurate or taken out of context but
my interpretation is that no complete genus-to-genus evolutionary
sequence has been found in the fossil record because such a transition
would be composed of a continuum of incremental species-to-species
evolutionary steps and it is almost inevitable that such a finely
graded evolutionary sequence would not be preserved in the fossil
record (because of the rairty of fossilisation). Would my interpretation of your intended meaning be correct?

Kind regards

Stumbler

here is Mr Kemp's reply;

Dear Stumbler,

You have it exactly right! It is of course hard to know how
taxonomically incomplete the fossil record is, and estimates vary. A
commonly quoted one is that around 1% of all species that existed are
known as fossils, and the figure is likely to be a good deal less for
terrestrial organisms with even less chance than marine organisms of
ending up as discovered fossils. So if there were, say, something like
10 successive intermediate grade species to reach the morphological
difference between two typical genera, you would only have a 10% or
less chance of finding even one of them. This itself also assumes a
continuous sequence of finely resolved strata in one region and over
perhaps 100,000-1,000000 years, which is extremely rare.
So I suppose the quote is accurate, and in the right context, but the
inference drawn from the observation is incorrect.

Best Wishes,

Tom Kemp
TheStumbler

4. Colin Paterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History is quoted as supporting the claim that there are no transitional fossils:

'I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. . .I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument'

This is taken out of context from a personal letter Patterson wrote to a creationist. Patterson has subsequently confirmed that he was referring to the fact that it can't be known with certainty whether a particular fossil has a direct ancestral relationship with another species or group. Archaeopteryx, for example, is not necessarily directly ancestral to birds. It may have been a species on a side-branch (an evolutionary dead end with no descendents).

In his 1979 book titled 'Evolution' Patterson makes it quite clear that he accepts that there are transitional fossils and cites several examples:

"In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes. . ."

5. The video claims that Archeoraptor was a scientific fraud published in the journal 'National Geographic'

National Geographic is not a journal it is a popular magazine!

Archaeoraptor was not a scientific fraud. It was put together by the same Chinese fossil hunter who discovered it. The pieces were assembled to make them more marketable to collectors, not to researchers.

Archaeoraptor was never published in any peer-reviewed scientific journal and in fact was rejected by the several journals who cited suspicions that the specimen had been doctored and illegally smuggled (Dalton 2000; Simons 2000). Archeoraptor was never claimed as a ‘missing link’ by the scientific community and the author of the National Geographic article was not even a scientist but the Arts Editor. The article was retracted once the error was identified.

5. The video claims that brontosaurus was a scientific fraud fabricated by 'evolutionists' who used the head from another fossil found four miles away.

The famous brontosaurus fossil discovered in 1979 was originally believed to be a new species closely related to Apatosaurus (but was later identified as larger Apatosaurus specimen and subsequently reclassified). The fossil was missing a head, and parts of its tail and legs. A composite was made using fossils found nearby from other specimens that were believed to be closely related to brontosaurus so that a model representation of what brontosaurus probably looked like could be presented to the public. No attempt was ever made to conceal the fact that it was a composite model and it was never presented as an evolutionary missing link
TheStumbler

6. The video claims that the Piltdown Man fossil was a fraud created by combining a human skull and ape jaw and was taught in science text books as a missing link in human evolution.

This is correct. Pilotdown Man was one of the biggest frauds in scientific history.

What the video doesn't reveal, however, is that even at the time Piltdown was controversial and not universally accepted by the scientific community. British scientists were generally credulous whereas American and French scientists suspected that the skull didn't belong with the jaw and that the bones were a mixture of human and ape (which was eventually found to be the case).

The Piltdown Fossil may have been fabricated but there was no way to examine such things in 1910. Chemical tests that are common today did not exist at the time and there was no radiometric dating. Also, because very few human evolutionary fossils had been discovered by that time, scientists didn't know what the missing links in human evolution looked like. When thousands of legitimate human/primate evolutionary fossils were subsequently discovered, scientists realised that Piltdown man did not fit with the pattern that was emerging. It was subsequently rejected by the scientific community and taken off public display.

In the 1950s the Piltdown fossil was re-examined with more modern techniques and the hoax was definitively exposed - by evolutionary scientists!

No one knows who fabricated the Piltdown fossil. The fact that some scientists were duped by the hoax is regrettable but ultimately the hoax was exposed by evolutionary scientists which demonstrates their intellectual integrity and the self correcting nature of the scientific method.

8. Nebraska Man was accepted as an early form of human based on a single tooth later discovered to be from a pig.

This claim is false in almost every regard. In 1917 a tooth similar to a human tooth was discovered in Nebraska. In 1922 the tooth was sent to a palaeontologist named Henry Fairfield Osborn who quickly announced the tooth as belonging to either an ape or human like species:

"I have not stated that Hesperopithecus was either an Ape-man or in the direct line of human ancestry, because I consider it quite possible that we may discover anthropoid apes (Simiidae) with teeth closely imitating those of man (Hominidae), ...Until we secure more of the dentition, or parts of the skull or of the skeleton, we cannot be certain whether Hesperopithecus is a member of the Simiidae or of the Hominidae." (Osborn 1922)

Osborn's claims about the tooth never gained widespread scientific acceptance even at the time. Most scientists were sceptical even of the more modest claim that the Hesperopithecus tooth belonged to a primate. For example, in his two-volume book Human Origins published during what was supposedly the heyday of Nebraska Man (1924), George MacCurdy dismissed Nebraska Man in a single footnote:

"In 1920 [sic], Osborn described two molars from the Pliocene of Nebraska; he attributed these to an anthropoid primate to which he has given the name

Hesperopithecus. The teeth are not well preserved, so that the validity of Osborn's

determination has not yet been generally accepted."

It is simply not true that Nebraska Man was widely accepted as an ape-man, or even as an ape, by scientists, and its effect upon the scientific thinking of the time was negligible. Few, if any scientists claimed that Nebraska Man was a human ancestor.

9. The video claims that Nebraska Man was reconstructed from a single tooth while referring to this picture:

The video very quickly skims over Peking Man which is understandable because it's claim is an outright lie.

Peking Man has never been shown to be a fraud, it is a remarkably well preserved specimen of Homo Erectus , a hominin species that lived between 1.4 million and 400,000 years ago.

Homo Erectus exhibited a mixture of ape and human-like features but Creationists reject it as a transitional species (so they can maintain their lie that no 'missing links' have been found) by claiming that it was just an ‘ape’.

This is clearly nonsense however because the largest Homo Erectus skull is almost twice as large as that of a large Gorilla. Any ape with a brain that size would be enormous, but no such ape has ever been found. Homo Erectus also had a smaller human-like jaw, walked upright, used tools and lived in primitive hunter gatherer societies.

Here is a Homo Erectus skull and reconstruction

http://sciencepenguin.com/homo-erectus/

clearly not not just an ape
AndDontCallMeShirley

I think it is absolutely hilarious when religious people point fingers at someone else, especially scientists, and make accusations of fraud, deceit and believing in "fairytales". A classic case of the kettle calling the pot black.

This is doubly so for JWs. If they only knew how much WT quotes out of context and cherry-picks to 'prove' their theology. Of course, the JWs who sent you this video will no more check out the source material alluded to in the video as they would verify what's in WT literature. They'll take half-baked claims and run with it, convinced they've added to their college education by reading the WT.

Great response to them, TS.
TheStumbler

11. The video claims that it is proven fact that Neanderthals were modern humans with arthritis.

This is false. Neanderthals are usually classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis , a subspecies of humans, in recognition of consistent differences such as heavy brow ridges, a long low skull, a robust skeleton, and others. (Some scientists believe the differences are large enough to justify a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis )

Some Neanderthals have been found with signs of health problems such as arthritis, rickets and syphilis. But Neanderthals have many distinctive features, and there is no reason why these diseases (or any others) would cause many, let alone all, of these features in one, let alone many, individuals.

Modern knowledge and experience also contradicts the idea that disease is a cause of Neanderthal features, because these diseases do not cause modern humans to look like Neanderthals.

12. The video claims that Peppered Moths do no rest on tree trunks and that photos of them on tree trunks were faked.

The claim that moths don't rest on trees is absurd on the face of it - why wouldn't they? Peppered Moths do not rest exclusively on tree trunks, but they do rest on them (Majerus 1998, 123).

The pictures of Peppered Moths on branches were staged for practical reasons (ever tried getting a picture of two different coloured peppered moths on the same piece of branch?) but they were only used illustratively - the photos were never cited as being the actual observational data. The photos played no part in the scientific scientific research or its conclusions (Majerus 1998, 123).

13. The video qoutes Nobel Laureate, George Wald as claiming that abiogenesis is impossible:

One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are -- as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation. - George Wald, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate, 1954

This quote is taken out of context. The next sentence reveals Wald's intended meaning:

It will help to digress for a moment to ask what one means by "impossible."

Wald then goes on to explain that what may seem impossible in human terms in fact becomes quite possible on a geological scale:

What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles...

One may disagree with Wald's assessment of the probability of abiogenesis occurring but misrepresenting his words so that he appears to hold beliefs that he does not hold is deeply dishonest
TheStumbler

14. The video claims that Haeckel faked evidence to support his hypothesis that the development of embryos echos evolutionary history.

Haeckel was wrong. His hypothesis was invalid, some of his drawings were faked, and he wilfully over-interpreted the data to prop up a false thesis.

Embryos do provide evidence for common descent (for example embryos develop very similarly across mammal species and even develop gill slits at the same stage of development) and Haeckel's drawings are sometimes incorrectly used to illustrate this in some text books.

Criticism of textbooks that still use Haeckel's drawings is valid however Creationists often try to use Haeckel's discredited ideas to criticise modern evolutionary theory. This is a misrepresentation because Haeckel's embryology makes no part of the modern theory of evolution. It was rejected and discredited by evolutionary scientists over a century ago.

15. The video claims that the geologic column does not exist.

Young earth creationists deny the geologic common exists (in the same dishonest way they dismiss fossil evidence - they lie about it) because it proves that the Earth and life are very old.

It is true that the existence of the entire geologic column does not exist in one single location but this is irrelevant. Parts of the geological column exist in many places, and there is more than enough overlap that the full column can be reconstructed from those parts.

Conclusion

Out of the 15 allegations of evolutionary fraud claimed in the video, only two have any merit. Both frauds were committed over 100 years ago, were identified and exposed by evolutionary scientists and no longer form any part of evolutionary theory.

Evolution does not rest on fraudulent evidence. If it did then the video would not have needed to resort to lies and dishonest misrepresentation.

This video is fairly typical of creationist propaganda. Creationists can't compete in the arena of science (where claims are scrutinised and evidence is required). Instead, they repeat the same talking points endlessly, whether or not they are true, and long after they have been discredited by scientists.

Most of the claims in this video are well known creationist claims and have been debunked many times before. Creationists don't care about this so repeat them anyway because they sound convincing enough to the uninformed
TheStumbler

Don't worry - it's over!

apologies for the the TLDR wall of text.

The he interesting thing is, I never got a reply to my email. I spoke to my family member about it afterwards and they kept evading my questions and changing the subject. i took the hint and dropped it.

But then, a couple of days ago, some 3 months after my email debunkong the video, I get an email fron the same family member linking another video by the same author/organisation (PPSIMMONS).

Any way, this new video is so bad and so stupid I'm not entirely sure it's not parody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV0hUldrYp4

if you read my wall of text I think this video is worth it!
Witness My Fury

Thanks for the info, could come in useful.
Apognophos

I read your wall of text, you magnificent bastard! Ahem, anyway, not that you need help in responding to this video, if you choose to do so, but here's a thread I started recently on Genesis 1:1 which debunks the idea that it is a creation of time and space from nothing: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/288832/1/Society-claims-Bible-creation-account-is-unlike-pagan-myths-clearly-doesnt-read-any-scholarly-work. Needless to say, the author of the video is applying a modern-day interpretation to the verse instead of actually looking at the context and the beliefs of men at the time it was written.

By the way, I burst out laughing at 3:28 when I saw only six metals listed on-screen. Also, when he starts focusing on how there are precisely seven words in 1:1 in Hebrew... is he not aware that the verse numbers were inserted by a Frenchman in the 1500s? That being said, some of the features of the verse that he points out may be intentional, due to the fixation the Jewish writers had on the number 7 and a desire to write something poetic. To assert as he does at 7:24 that they could not have been placed there by the author is simply ridiculous, as the Jews invented bloody gematria in the first place.
under the radar

"Triple intensification"... wow! Is that like "Repetition for Emphasis," one of the council points on the old Ministry School sheet?

This guy should have been a numerologist. Anyone with enough time can find hidden meanings in just about any combination of numbers and/or letters. Remember when JW's were all abuzz about the name "Kissinger" having letters that added up to 666?

Well, here's some more amazing facts. My last name has 7 letters. My son's first name has 7 letters. My birth year's last two digits add up to 7. My job is flying an aircraft called...wait for it...the 777, or triple-7!

Coincidence? I don't think so!

Creationism emails from a JW

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