Not losing any sleep

18 April 2005

How can you people sleep at night, knowing that you have purposely mislead [sic] your readers?

If we are just rearranged pond scum, and our actions are just initiated by a brain obeying the fixed laws of chemistry, on what basis do you judge that misleading people (if in fact we had) is wrong?

A case in point, your article “Ancient humans are not all that ancient” leaves out the perninent information:

1. The professor in question was a fraud and lied about the dates, so they were not produced by carbon dating.

And what would you call the clear statement, ‘However, recently many of von Zieten’s estimates have been called into question’? There are questions of libel if we had stated overtly that he was a fraud, particularly based on early, often unsubstantiated reports. But after more information came in, we published the article Upper Paleolithic blues: Consequences of recent dating fiasco on human evolutionary prehistory by a guest columnist completely independently of your letter, as well as a perspective in the current Journal of Creation by Matthew Murdock, ‘Scandalous first dates for Neandertals’, 19(1):17–18, 2005.

2. Carbon dating *cannot* produce dates that are millions of years old.

I have just read with great interest the latest feedback letter from the believing geologist who is struggling with his belief in evolution. I received a BS degree in geology from NC State University in 1975 so I can relate to his situation. It was my own.

From 1975 to 1990 I was a “believing” evolutionist, having been a faithful church-goer all my life. Until January, 1990 I would have written a letter similar to the one on your web site. It was not until I became distressed over my realization in 1989 that I did not believe any of the Bible and, as a result, asked God to show me the reason for my unbelief (evolution) that I was able to see the truth. He showed me, literally in an instant of revelation, that my unbelief of the entire Bible had begun with the first eleven chapters. It is hard to admit that one’s education and beliefs are based on a lie. I became absolutely certain of my salvation by faith in Christ’s death to pay for my sins soon after I was shown by the Lord the truth of His Word from the beginning.

I have learned that Truth can not be learned, it can only be revealed by the One who is the Truth. Therefore, the writer of the feedback letter will only discover the truth of Genesis (and the rest of the Bible!) when he asks God to show him. I am praying that he will do so. Belief in creation or evolution is, above all, a spiritual matter which only God Himself can resolve.

I am beginning the process of training myself to present the truth of Genesis to others so that, by God’s grace, they will be able to give a defense of the faith they have within them without first having to pass through the wilderness.

In Christ,
Everett Coates
USA

Indeed not. Doesn’t stop certain folk ignorant of this (such as Barry Lynn) claiming that C-14 proves that the earth is billions of years old.

However, the point was that C-14 activity has been detected in samples that are claimed to be millions of years old, as shown by the links. The article also made the point about how foolish it is to deny the timescale God revealed in Scripture based on ‘dating’ reports that can be flawed in a number of ways (including fraud).

Other methods are used to date items that are suspected of being 50,000 years old.

Actually AMS in theory is good for 50 ka.

By ommiting this crucial information, your readers are left to infer that carbon dating was the culprit in this case, rather than the professor.

I fail to see how, when the article clearly stated that it was the newer C-14 dates that showed that the prof. was wrong.

This is just one of many such examples at your website.

Translation: I can’t actually think of another which is why I grasped at straws here.

It’s unfortunate that your authors choose to lie or omit the truth in order to convince your readers. These kinds of actions are offensive to Christians everywhere.

Grant Barr
USA

As shown, there was no intention to mislead by omission. But what would you care, anyway, given your presumably evolutionary outlook on life? This ‘offense’ can therefore be nothing more than a chemical reaction in your brain which was programmed for some sort of survival value. I might add that it’s hypocritical to worry about offending Christians only in this area (although once again, evolutionists are not being inconsistent with their own belief system), but not when, say, taxpayer dollars fund ‘p--s Christ’ statue exhibitions and slaughter of unborn babies, or more recently helped to stop people giving water and nutrients to a disabled woman.

Regards,
(Dr) Jonathan Sarfati
Brisbane, Australia