Creation SuperCamp SuperSnark Recap

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

Thank you!

[CyborgKin]

Luke George: A DELUGE OF EVIDENCE - Rocks, fossils and the biblical timescale

 

Song: Great South Land of the Holy Spirit 
Intro,  announcements: Never been at the front of 750 people praising God before. 
Someone's lights are on,  someone left their keys in the door 
People from each the states raising hands when called,  some from NZ,  a few international too. 
Left out ACT lol

Luke George from South Australia. Grew up getting Creation Magazine,  huge impact,  interest in science,  huge thanks to CMI. 
2/3 through PhD something something trace metal sulfides. 

Was taught in a young age literal Genesis church from a young age. 
Mark 10:6 from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. 
Went to study geology.  Photo standing on a volcano,  sponsored field trip. 
Held onto faith but not without some stumbling and doubts,  taught long ages,  that things did really appear old,  began to belive that. 
Resolution was that appearance of age does not necessarily correlate to age. 
Uniformitarianism: processes and rates of processes were the same through all Earth's history as we see today. 
Assume sediment deposited slowly and gradually as we see today,  rocks erode slowly as we see today. 
Uniformitarianism teaches that we can treat appearance and age as the same. 
This is a worldview,  not science.   Assumption about the past,  cannot be proven. Cannot prove how processes occurred in the past. 
Charles Lyell recognised uniformitarianism was not compatible with Biblical worldview. Set out and succeeded in separating science from Moses. 
Dr Warren D. Allmon quote. Lyell also sold geology some snake oil. (gradualism) 
History of the world taught in the Bible teaches the opposite. Supernatural interventions shaped the earth.  Drastically different history to uniformitarianism. Uniformitarianism requires long ages,  Bible teaches short. 
Can supernatural interventions described in the Bible explain the earth we see today? Can it explain the evidence we observe? 
3 topics: erosion,  deposition,  radiometric dating. 

Mount Saint Helens "little grand canon"
another canyon in the US that formed in 6 days. 
Cavitation which is studied by engineers and geologists.  Vacuum bubbles,  implosion, destruction of rock and concrete. 
Dam spillway 3 feet of steel reinforced concrete and the bedrock below in minutes. 
Many large scale erosional features which cannot be explained be uniformitarianism
At rates we see now,  a million years would have eroded through the whole UK. 

Sedimentation 
Mount Saint Helens again,  many meters of sediment in hours,  pyroclastic flow 
Geologists are taught each layer is a separate sedimentation event. Mount Saint Helens shows layer separation in a single sedimentation event. 
Can this be done in sedimentation in water? 
Yes.  In air,  stagnant water,  and flowing water, 
What about mudstone? Does mud need to be tranquil for the particles to fall out of suspension? 
Yes,  mud is deposited at same flow velocities as sand,  in a flume,  makes layers the same as real mudstone. 
So mudstone doesn't require long ages,  unlike what is taught. 

4 metre long fossilised fish,  with a fish inside it. Only takes a few days for it to digest. 4m fish was completely buried in days. 
Icthyosaur fossilised giving birth,  so it was fully buried in hours to be preserved that way. Rapid catastrophic sedimentation. 
Cannot be explained by uniform. 

Radiometric dating. 
Rocks contain minerals with some radioactive elements which decay to other elements over time. 
Parent isotope,  daughter isotope. 
Picture of hourglass,  uranium decaying to lead. By measuring the ratio of elements and current decay rate we can calculate age.  Straightforward can find ages with high precision. 
But, we assumes the starting amounts of the isotope,  no extra gain and loss,  no change in rate. 
Some other methods like isochron,  but still have some assumption. 
Grand canyon 4 different methods,  very different ages. 
Repeated for several parts of grand canyon rock.  Which age is the correct one?  Can't know for sure,  use the results that fit your model,  throw away the others due to contamination. 
Cannot truly date a past event with confidence other than eyewitness. 
Radiometric dating does not measure age. It measures concentration of isotopes and assumes that nothing has changed. 
Biggest assumption is the stable decay rates. Only measured them for hundred years out of billions. 7 orders of magnitude extrapolation. 
We observe some decay rate changes.  Solar distance,  solar flares,  ionisation can change rate. 

Helium is a result of decay. In zircons it is trapped in the crystals but it gradually escapes by diffusion,  depending on the temperature of the zircon crystal. 
Granite didorite 1.5 billion years old,  temperature and percent retained helium at many depth was recorded. 
Creationists calculated helium leak rate,  diffusivity with temperature assuming 1.5 years in age. 
Also helium leak rates if only 6000 years age.  Factor of 100,000 difference between rates.  Published prediction actual rate would be closer to young age rate. 
Got a long ager scientist to calculate leak rate of helium in the zircons (he wasn't told why) and they fit the young age prediction. 
I.e. If the zircons were really 1.5 billion years old a lot more helium should have leaked out,  by a large factor. 
Carbon dating 
Not on rocks 
Fact decay rate. 
Carbon 14 size of Earth would all decay in million years. 
Any sample we date should have all carbon 14 gone in 10000 years. 
90 samples millions of years old were found to have c14
Diamonds found to have c14, cannot be older than 100k, not contaminated because diamond 
Dinosaur bones found to have c14, paper was removed from public view without word to authors or Asia Oceanic Geoscience Society officers. 

People don't want to be held to an account morally to a creator 
Because of Jesus we do not have to face the consequences of that moral failure. 
Rocks and fossils can absolutely be explained in a Biblical timescale. 

 

 

(stargazing is cancelled because rain) 

[DaffyDill]

I'm surprised at the size of the turnout, to be honest, because I see Australians as a pretty heathen bunch generally. We have quite a low percentage of people who attend church on a regular basis, something like 10% IIRC (will hunt down stats later).

Still, I guess we don't have large events like this too often, so people would make an effort to go from all around the country.

Well done @CyborgKinfor doing such a thorough job! You're a braver FJ'er than I am 

[prayawaythefundie]

Oh,  sweet unintelligent designer: Demanding a photo proof of a dinosaur turning into a bird because if you can't observe it now, it never happened (that DID never happen btw but we would have to start at the very basics to explain to them the principles of common ancestry, gradual changes and  different  pressures of selection) but when present day  observations like sedimatation and erosion are used to explain events that's not ok either because who says it happened the same way then as it does now? Of course, an eyewitness would be great because they have been proven to never be wrong or lie  

[CyborgKin]

Schedule change: next talk is John Hartnett: PIERCING THE 'DARKNESS' - The bankruptcy of big-bang thinking and its 'dark' fudge factors. 

On the topic of dinosaur to bird evolution: http://creation.com/dinosaur-bird-evolution

[CyborgKin]

John Hartnett: PIERCING THE 'DARKNESS' - The bankruptcy of big-bang thinking and its 'dark' fudge factors. 

 

David King withdrew,  John Hartnett's Thursday morning talk is happening instead 
Mark Harwood will do an exoplanet talk in John's slot. 

(ugh I'm getting old,  some kids informed me that their parents told them to call adults Mister [lastname]. I've never been a Mister before.  I'm only in my twenties! Okay,  my late twenties.) 

John met Carl Welland 1980. Has degree in physics. 

Who has sat in on previous talks at previous camps? Couple of hundred maybe. 
Bankruptcy of big bang: marking it on several points. 
Development by an atheist and a pagan Jesuit priest.  X
Godless and pagan theory  x
Contrary to Genesis history x
Has a beginning in time (gets a tick for this point.  But they are trying to eliminate that beginning) 

1 John 5:19

Relevance to Christians
Quotes Lawrence Krauss.  Forget Jesus,  the stars died so you could be born. 

Fudge factors invented to explain holes. 
 
Is cosmology actually science? 
We can only do one measurement.  Is our universe typical? We can't test more universes. 
Cosmology may look like a science but isn't. Quotes a lot of cosmologists. 
Goal of cosmology is to reconstruct the history of universe. 
Not science,  starts with unverifiable assumptions,  unverifiable in the laboratory,  not even astrophysics. 
Inventing unknowable to explain the unknown 
About 95 % universe is supposed to be unobservable stuff 

1 where did the universe come from? 

2 why did nothing explode? 
No matter no energy no space no time 
Some claim that nothing is actually something. 
Universe selects histories that lead to what exists according to Hawking 

Discover magazine quote about the universe coming from nothing and expanded to fill with stuff from nowhere 
why did it expand? 
Dark energy. 
Everything we know about dark energy:

(laughter and applause) 
Dark energy is a big bang fudge factor. 
Cosmic inflation is a big bang fudge factor. 

3. How did stars and galaxies form? 
Dust and gas from former stars 
Simulations are seeded with dark matter,  or are only started after reaching the Jeans instability limit. 
Dark matter of the gaps! 
Maybe supernovae compressed the dust so it could collapse into stars. 
Dark matter is a fudge factor. 

4. Missing shadows of galaxy clusters in the CMB
Shows CMB temp map. 
Should be radiation of big bang explosion,  most distant source. 
Should be shadows from galaxy clusters in the foreground. 
There are not. 
So it is not actually the true background,  so saying it is the remnant of the big bang is incorrect 

5. Why the axis of evil? 
This is a particular feature of the CMB
Cosmological principal is that the earth is not in a special place in the universe,  distribution of matter is homogenous. Required for big bang model and is believed by blind faith 

There are patterns in the  CMB and a preferred direction or axis.  It's called the axis of evil cos it does damage to the theory of big bang. 
The axis is aligned with the ecliptic. 
Also found in new planc satellite data to many spherical harmonic terms.  Separate to old data so it is not contamination. 
Undermines cosmological principle. 
Note, this is not geocentricsm. 
Quote Richard Feynman about why we cling not uniformity. 

6. Why expansion of space? 
No expansion would mean no big bang. 
Explanation of redshift and cosmological expansion. 
1929 Hubble 'discovers' expansion of universe by redshift. 
Redshift is not a dopler effect,  galaxies aren't literally moving away.   Hubble interpreted the redshift as expansion of space. 
Hubble  law: the greater the distance,  the greater the redshift. 
Diagram of space expanding,  galaxies are stationary but move further away from each other because space expands. 
In this model there is no unique center,  every point seems to be the center. 
If anything broke Hubble's law it would cast doubt on this idea. 

Photo of a galaxy with a quasar.  Quasar appears to be in front of the galaxy ejected toward us.   It is blueshifted moving toward us. It's blueshift is not related to Hubble expansion. 

Expanding vs static universes predict different brightness vs redshift for standard stars.   A study seems to fit static better. 

Galaxy density should, should get less further away. It doesn't so galactic evolution (they are smaller and dimmer longer ago) is invented to balance it out. 

7 the singularity and origin of universe 
Models assume laws of physics 

8 origin of laws of physics 
Infinite multiverse is proposed to explain this.  Very imaginative. 

9 parameters of universe tuned for life. Why is there an arrow of time? 

10 why did the universe start off so homogenous?   That's required to prevent too many black holes. 
But 

11. Smoothness problem: matter distribution of universe not lumpy enough to form galaxies.  Dark matter involvement is proposed to fix this 
12 flatness problem, why is the universe so euclidean? 
13 missed this 
14 light travel time problem for heat distribution in universe (It's too homogenous) .  Inflation proposed to fix this but can't be proven 
15 higgs boson major contradiction for universe inflation,  should have collapsed 
16 dark energy for acceleration to fit observations but what is it 
17 missed this 
18 standard model of physics needs dark radiation for bib bang nucleosynthesis model 
19 not enough antimatter so dark matter tuning parameter needed to explain observations 
20 dark radiation something something 

Overall point: a lot of fudge factors are needed to make observations fit big bang theory. 
Lecture on YouTube 8 reasons why evolution is foolish. johnhartnett.org 
Sorry some of the points went too fast,  the last bunch were quick summaries cos no one would understand most of the concepts anyway. 

[CyborgKin]

I think I got part of that wrong.   The quasar is redshifted so it's supposed to be behind the galaxy by Hubble's law.   But the gas appearing to connect the galaxy and the quasar is blueshifted. 

Maybe related http://creation.com/quasars-defy-big-bang

 

The lecture mentioned: 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uo_5GkgpGGk

[EyeQueue]

6 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

Unrelated to the split,  this bunch said recently said "Accounting for all presently known relevant details and assuming the Babylonian Captivity began in 587 or 586 BC, we can say with confidence that the Bible places limits on the year of creation between 5665 and 3822 BC." http://creation.com/biblical-age-of-the-earth

 

 

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Are dire dragons anything like dire wolves? Do they get a +2 initiative bonus?

[CyborgKin]

Sam Gan: ANTIBODIES, VIRUSES AND PSYCHOLOGY - God's Word above all

 

Housekeeping: question box for the question time. 
"Your mission if you choose to accept it is to find a question Dr Hartnett can't answer."

Sam Gan from Singapore.  Was on the fence about evolution until Carl Weiland talk. 

Snippets then more on the last topic. 
Using DNA2App and another app I didn't catch
Maybe it was tower of Hanoi 

Greatest commandment given by Jesus : love God with all your heart soul strength and also our mind. 
Bible history book of the universe,  guides us in all things. 

Picture of part of HIV. 
Viruses are parasites. 
Not strictly life. 
Infect bacteria plants animals,  humans, 
Highly pathogenic. 
Capsule with DNA. 

Central dogma of molecular biology
DNA makes RNA makes proteins. 

Balintore classification of genome 
Some viruses are single stranded,  some double,  some RNA,  some DNA,  some hybrid,  7 different classifications? 
How are they related? Which came first? 
Cells came before viruses. 
So the evolutionary tree is complicated. 

Transcription process in eukaryotic cells,  RNA transcription explained briefly 
Overlapping genes explained. 
A single mutation can affect multiple RNA transcripts and multiple resulting proteins. 
HIV diagram showing how several genes overlap. 
DNA2App transcription frames,  how changing one letter can change one protein by inserting a stop codon. 
Prions,  wrong folding,  mad cow disease. 

105 amino acids shared between 2 overlapping but different proteins.  One anti aging,  one for preventing tumours.   Frequently activated in human tumours. 

Some example where the antisense MBA is also used in some other function. 

Antibodies. 
Defense against cancer and viral infections. 
This is why you get vaccinated. 
Antibodies all have the same structure and function. 
Antibodies have a variable portion that mutates. 
3 parts V D and J. Many combinations
10^different specificities. 

Sam's unpublished research: deleting a single amino acid at a non-actice has a huge difference in antibody structures and messes it up a lot. 

This is a system that intentionally mutates to make antibodies. Very complex.  Irreducible. 

Psychology. 

Tower of Hanoi. 
Used to test intelligence, planning, design. 
585 billion years to solve 64 discs at one move per second. 
What does it mean? 
Things like antibodies are much more complicated than the tower of Hanoi. 
If solving the tower of Hanoi is a sign of intelligence, planning, design,  then something like antibodies are even more so. 
Information and planning preexisted the existence of DNA RNA, proteins,  etc. 
Only God can make something like this.  Theistic evolution doesn't fit. 

What about the fall in Genesis? 
Evilness of man. 
Dawkins quote,  universe with no evil,  no good,  blind pitiless. 
Bible describes evil as deviation from God's paths 
Evolution does not believe in evil. 

What does psychology say about evil? 
Standard Prison Experiment 
Prisoners and wardens 
Authoritarian psychological torture occurred
experimenter's wife stopped it early.  Only one to question the morality. 

Milgram 
Study of willingness to obey authority figure against conscience 
Teacher has to electric shock student on wrong answer (student was faking it) 
Shows willingness to harm others when instructed to. 

Jesus said we are prone to evil 

Psychology of cheating 
Kinsey report 
50 percent of men cheated,
26 percent of women extramarital sex by their 40s

Psychology of lying 
People watching themselves on videotape found they were lying more than they expected 
We teach children to lie even though we tell them not to. 

Conclusion: psychology corroborate Biblical state of sinful man 

 

 

Night owl session will be Tas Walker on local geology but I'm going to bed. 

[prayawaythefundie]

Thank you very much, CyborgKin and good night!

Fascinating. I guess we have to be glad they tell people to get vaccinated...

Concerning the psychology part: I think it has to be the Stanford Prison Experiment.

 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

Thank you, again. Hope you have a good night's sleep. 

[Fascinated]

You've gone above and beyond, @CyborgKin!

Truly and utterly fascinating. So much wtfuckery in one place. I adore you for doing this!  Good god, it's just so fascinating and bewildering to me. 

[slickcat79]

It actually sounds like this conference is a lot more intellectual than the average fundie conference in the US. Which is...pretty damn sad, actually.

[Grimalkin]

20 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

They claim to know what a scientific theory is http://creation.com/refuting-evolution-2-chapter-3-argument-evolution-is-true-science-not-just-a-theory

 

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       Were they all raptured?

[CyborgKin]

6 hours ago, prayawaythefundie said:

Thank you very much, CyborgKin and good night!

Fascinating. I guess we have to be glad they tell people to get vaccinated...

Concerning the psychology part: I think it has to be the Stanford Prison Experiment.

 

Oops,  that's an autocomplete riffle that sneaked past me,  sorry. 

 

29 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

       Were they all raptured?

Heh.   At a safety meeting. 

[CyborgKin]

BTW,  if anyone cares,  the vast majority of females are in pants - mostly jeans - as is typical for Australia. Very few dresses. Some shorts. Even some sleeveless shirts. All very normal. 

About the same for the males.  Except no skirts at all

 

[CyborgKin]

Luke George Devotional 

As Christians and creationists,  how do we handle ourselves in this battle? What defines us? 
1st corinthians 13:1
Most important thing is love. 
Must have love for the people we speak to. 
Otherwise we're literally an annoying noise. 
Not all criticism of creationists is unwarranted,  can be obnoxious and hateful! 
Some people have been put off by an arrogant tone in creationist books. 
Doesn't matter if people think we are stupid,  but not okay to be annoying,  unloving. 
Knowing everything does not count for anything if we don't have love. 
If we set out to win arguments just to win we are doing harm,  are actually losing and driving people away. 
Christians' end game is not to look smart. 
The world knows us by our love -  Jesus said. 
Love is an action.  But is not only an action.  Can do all the right actions without having love
 Actions demonstrate love,  but you need a loving motivation behind the actions too. 
What is your reason for being at camp? 
If it's just to learn more knowledge to win arguments and look clever,  you have the wrong motivation. 
Without love,  this camp is nothing,  Christianity is nothing. 

Before the devotional was singing led by a home school dad and his 4th daughter of 5.

Now hearing from a sponsor,  Salt Shakers. 

Spoiler

 

[CyborgKin]

Don Batten: EVOLUTION VS SCIENCE - How evolutionary belief has hurt biology

Father of 3
CMI senior scientist 
Main person behind Creation Answers book
Specialty plant biology,  tropical fruit. [where are these mangoes?]

Thanking the leader of the CMI friends group who is MC this morning. 

Evolution vs science.  But evolution is science,  right? 
What is science? 
Oxford dictionary definition. 
Systematic study of structure and behaviour of physical world etc etc 
Operational science, experiment,  observable repeatable. 
Vs historical science,  what happened in the past 
History is unrepeatable 
We don't have a time machine 
Dr Who, Blackadder,  BTTF
Reformation was important to development of science 
Why is evolution called science?  it is unrepeatable history. 

Science has predictions,  falsifiable. 
Cannot prove theories about what happened in the past with tests in the present. 

Historical science: gather data,  can't test with experiments,  only test is plausibility. 
Darwin recognised that his ideas were beyond the bounds of science.  Quote provided. 

Studying how a car and kangaroos work doesn't tell us their history. 
Natural processes currently don't produce either 
Both contain coded information systems 
Can conclude an intelligent agent produced both 
Sufficient cause 
Not something that can be proven by experiment 

Functional biology is how an organism operates,  evolutionary biology its history. 
Quotes some evolutionary scientists who make the distinction between operational and historical types of biology. 
Ernst Meyer,  Colin Patterson 
Unique events are by definition not part of science,  impossible to test. 

Evolutions have Physics Envy (chuckle from audience) 
Just so stories disguised as science  - J. Chaikowsky Geology vs Physics 

Could fit more real science in the science curriculum if they took out the history. Kids would be more excited about science. 

Quote of Bruce Railbeck trying to redefine science to include history. 

Big claim about evolution is that it explains all the diversity of life. 
Only diagram in Darwinism book,  tree diagram (pictured) 
Phylogeny 
Evolutionary history of organism
Dawkins echoes Darwin 
Single thing that proves evolution a fact: comparing genes molecularly,  precise hierarchical pattern,  best interpreted as family tree. 
Darwin said fossils would prove it,  now we look at genes instead. 
Diagram of fossils that are found 
Dotted lines connecting the groups is fossils not found,  imaginary,  no connection,  no evolution in the fossils. 

Quote of G Lawnton,  Dawkins is wrong 
W Doolittle,  molecular phylogeneticists failed to find the true tree.  Because there isn't one. 
We have failed the task Darwin set for us. 
Eukaryotic genes that seem to have come from nowhere. 
"I can tell him where they came from" 
Messy evolutionary bush diagram. 

Homology and Evolution 
Homology was the study of similar structures with similar purposes. 
Now similar structures are studied as common ancestry. 

Why would God created similarities? 
1. One pattern one creator 
2. We need to be similar for food 
3. Ecological reasons,  bacteria need to be able to consume excrement 
4. Similarities thwart evolution!
Placental vs Marsupial mammals 
Similarities can't be explained by recent common ancestry 
Homoplasy 
Parallel evolution or convergence:
Things that can't be explained by evolution so they call it evolution and explain it away. 

One neat tree? 
No
Orphan genes 11 percent have no ancestry (humans vs chimps) 
Different trees depending on what genes you use 
Called 'mosaic evolution'  to explain away the problem 
Incomplete lineage sorting is the norm 

Micro RNA segments give different tres to protein coding segments 

Hominids 
We keep finding evolutionary dead ends instead of human ancestors
A lot of time wasted 
Many hundreds of unique genes in humans 
Osteocalcin N terminus humans and gorillas alike not chimps 
Another gene humans orange similar,  not gorillas or chimps 
Depending on what genes you compare:
55 percent chimp closer to humans 
18 percent  gorilla closer 
20 percent chimp closer to gorilla. 

Hemoglobin in legume nitrogen fixing nodules -  leghemoglobin 
Can not explain it by transfer,  transposition,  or common ancestry 
Similar to animal hemoglobin but not quite 

Mouse and fly eyes controlled by same gene. 
Doesn't fit evolutionary model. Flies and mice shouldn't use same gene 
'parallel evolution'  explains away the problem. 

Echolocation in both bats and dolphins. 
200 genes similarity 
No common inheritance of bats and dolphins,  how did they get 200 genes the same? 
Does not fit neat evolutionary tree. 

Evidence of common ancestry within animal Families 
As we would expect. 

Convergence is so common how do we know when it is due to convergence and when it is really recent common ancestry? 

Vestigial organs 
180 organs 1893 thought to be vestigial or rudimentary 
No one studies useless organs. 
These organs are not useless but we're ignored because evolutionary beliefs. 
Today some textbooks still teach the appendix is useless! 
Appendix is important in repopulating gut flora after sickness 
Went from number 1 exhibit of evolution to number 1 exhibit against evolution 
50 of 361 living mammals have appendix, 
Scattered widely doesn't fit Dawkins' neat tree. 
Had to evolve independently 32+ times

The more real science we know,  the more evolution is in retreat. 

Junk DNA! 
Evolutionists need junk DAN
Junk DNA is a place for mutations to occur safely at evolutionarily required rates without overwhelming organism to extinction 
Allows genes to change freely without killing off offspring before it becomes something viable 
Biggest mistake in history of microbiology 
Probably all genome is useful.  ENCODE said 80 percent used,  probably will become 100
Junk DNA idea impeded science and turned out completely wrong 

Darwinism is junk science
Multiple failed predictions

Lots of quotes 
Darwinism is a doctrine people defend 
Harms science 
Not allowed to be refuted 
Anything that doesn't fit is suppressed 
Futile thinking is pervading science and destroying it 

[Fascinated]

Silly Darwin, destroying Science.

So, is the audience made up entirely of like-minded people, do you think?  Do they have Q&A sessions?

[CyborgKin]

There's a question box... 
Spiel from sponsor: Focus on the Family 
Also the cinnamon donuts were good. 

[CyborgKin]

James Whitehall: GOING BACK TO UNI - How does the latest evolution teaching stack up?

 

B. eng 
Biomedical tech,  speech recognition 
Gone back to uni to do more science.  Geology,  paleobiology. 

Story about as a kid trying to fly by holding ropes of a swing. 

Not speaking about why evolution is false,  but something more insidious 
How the current teaching is constructed as a series of illusions to deceive people. 

The definition of science is formulated to trick people. 
"Scientific knowledge is our understanding of natural law." 
"Our understanding of natural law must explain what is observed with reference to science." 
Self reference alert! 

Science based on self reference cannot be falsified. 
"We know evolution is true because we exist. "

Early scientists knew that natural world is observed by science,  not defined by science. 

"There is overwhelming evidence for evolution" 
Darwin observed members of a population often vary greatly in their traits"
Explanation of traits.  Talking about traits of European wasp.  Has a 3d model. 
Darwin then reasoned that an individual born with a tiny favourable trait would have slightly higher chance of survival. 
Therefore inevitable slow improvement of population over time 
Inevitable ramp of upward evolution. 
This is a major illusion. 
This is how evolution is presented to the public.  Inevitable upward march. 
Looks scientific,  inevitable,  compelling,  proven. 
The public buy into it. 
This is obfuscation of the truth. 

There is no path.   The ramp does not exist. 
Has never been demonstrated that there is a valid mutational path. 
No mechanism.  The engine need to be able to propel up the path. 
Natural selection is not strong enough. 
No fossil evidence. 
Much opposition. 

Space shuttle complex engineering.  Complex plans.  Stored on paper or electronic. 
Can mutate by flicking ink on the blueprints 
Evolution requires that randomly altering the designs in the genome improves them,  adding new information 
No mutation has been observed that adds information 
Most mutations are harmful or neutral. 
Harmful ones build up faster than they can be removed. 
Dragging population down the fitness ramp,  not up it. 
This result is disastrous for evolution. 

The illusion of beneficial mutation 
Shifter spanner more complex than fixed spanner 
Rust can make it stuck at 10mm 
This is beneficial in environment with 10mm nuts only. 
Sickle cell anemia is a benefit in malaria areas.   But it's detrimental in a broader context. 
Sickle cell anemia is a poster child for evolution. Even though it involves broken blood cells 

Mutation fitness selection 
Three words that are the foundation for evolution. 
Their godhead,  three in one,  lol

Natural selection would need powerful insight to select the mutations responsible for the good changes and reject the mutations causing the bad ones 
Natural selection is too blunt. And too weak. 
It can only see the traits.  Not the mechanism behind the traits.  It can't see the mutations. 
It's easy to seek the for speed.  But if you can only see speed you don't know the mechanisms involved in contributing to the speed. 
Example of speed boats.  Both had bad mutations.  The faster one had bent propeller shaft,  but there was a crosswind that day so it won. Natural selection can't see all those details. 

Wild dogs,  long and short hair, able to adapt to different situations,  preprogrammed variation. 

From first year university,  best examples of evolution 
North American sparrow color 
Drug resistance 
Size of guppies 
Artifical selection 

Makes it look like natural selection is precise and meticulous. 
But this is an illusion. 
All those changes are preprogrammed variability. 

Imagine an engineering course that only discussed why a bridge stands up,  never how it might fall down. 

Cnidarians (jellyfish)  pet topic of his lecturer. 
Gave great detail on their evolutionary history. 
Very impressive level of detail 
A student asked Sir what is it going to evolve to next? 
This question was reasonable,  what you would expect in a science class. 
Teacher was uncomfortable.  "evolution doesn't work like that" 
He couldn't say what will happen next to a simple jellyfish. 
What good is evolution if it can't predict anything? 
Can't predict the future,  how can we trust it about the past? 

No path
Cannot walk to the moon no matter how fit you are. 
Diagrams of how organisms are related assume there is a path. 
Organisms have many traits 

Pikaia (your ancestor lol) 
Tail needs to be in certain bounds of length of fitness is zero. 
Graph of fitness vs tail length.  Looks like a normal distribution. 
There is an optimum length where fitness is best. 
Body weight is another trait. 
3d graph of fitness for tail length and weight. 
There is an optimum point on the fitness plain.  The sweet spot. 

But there are hundreds of traits. 
Can't draw hundred dimensional graph. 
There is some goldilocks point of maximum fitness. 

Three legged dog and one eyed cow. Low fitness but still survives. 
There are local fitness maxima. 
Local hills on the fitness plain. 

Plots a fitness terrain,  a lot of kinda like rocky looking ground. 
Random movement around the terrain due to mutations. 
Natural selection drives them up the small local hills 
Can't go down the hills,  that would be survival of the less fit 
Natural selection then prevents further progress. 

Fossil record does not contain a continuum. 

What we actually find is discrete groups. 
What the Bible calls kinds. 

But evolution does not give up.  Needs a powerful illusion to mop up this mess and hide the gaps 
Need to hide the missing sequence. And missing ancestor descendant relationship 

Just view the diagram from the right angle and it looks like the evolutionary story. 
Tilt it right to hide the gaps. 
Hide the missing relationships by drawing lines but splitting things into groups does not prove ancestry.  It's just sorting them into groups. 
This is called a cladogram. Primary wand of the evolutionary illusion. 
If we look from above the mountains we don't see the valleys,  looks flat. 

Science needs solid clear definitions that don't change. 
Paper on butterfly wing brightness. 
Females attracted to bright colours. 
Fitness is bright color to be seen ! 

Peppered moths. 
Fitness is dull color to not be seen! 

Speed of response to spider when fly in web. 
Fitness is speed to catch prey. 

Sloth 
fitness is slowness to conserve energy. 

Fitness is large size,  smallness,  spawning many seeds or one,  aggressive or passive behaviour... 
Fitness is whatever you need it to be. 
So is natural selection. 
Evolution is not a unifying factor in science 
The definition changes everywhere. 
Lacks coherency of structure 
Gives the illusion of predictability 
Smorgasbord of disconnected ideas masquerading as a theory 
Use whatever definition fits the data. 

A the problems are hidden with illusions. 
Textbooks are a clever arrangement of real science,  special definitions,  and clever illusions. 
People fall for it and really do believe a designer is not necessary. 

 

Applause 
Credits for copyright attribution roll
Closing credits:
"No animals evolved during the making of this talk "
Extra applause and laughter 

Pics of some slides 

First two are from a 3d fitness landscape he was rotating. 

Spoiler

 

[warriorblade8857]

"Refuting the Atheists: Despite their assertive confidence, their arguments are vulnerable."

Irony, much?

[CyborgKin]

Billions of ironies! 

[Mrsaztx]

This weekend while perusing Facebook my husband came across something (I don't even know what, probably about climate change) and one of the comments was something along the lines of "for all you who believe in evolution, why weren't cave men killed off when the asteroid killed off the dinosaurs?" I convinced him to post a picture from the Flinstones captained "not an actual photo" and it absolutely made my day

[CyborgKin]

2 minutes ago, Mrsaztx said:

This weekend while perusing Facebook my husband came across something (I don't even know what, probably about climate change) and one of the comments was something along the lines of "for all you who believe in evolution, why weren't cave men killed off when the asteroid killed off the dinosaurs?" I convinced him to post a picture from the Flinstones captained "not an actual photo" and it absolutely made my day

Wow,  dumb comment! Excellent snark in response