Petition to remove Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International, Institute for Creation Research from Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.


Unfortunately, they are also listing the works of AIG, CMI, and ICR as valid sources for students to find information. These groups don't qualify as scholarly sources as they are not interested in facts or truth, but pushing their own biased view that anything that contradicts the bible must be wrong. 


Each group has the following statement in their 'About Us - Statement of Faith': "By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record." or something very similar. Clearly this is a license to lie and / or deny evidence that doesn't support their view. 


The National Center for Science Education collected over 800 signatures from scientists in the three states closest to the museum (Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio) on the following statement:

"We, the undersigned scientists at universities and colleges in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, are concerned about scientifically inaccurate materials at the Answers in Genesis museum. Students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level. These students will need remedial instruction in the nature of science, as well as in the specific areas of science misrepresented by Answers in Genesis."

Fortunately, there is a petition to ask Google to remove these sites from Google Scholar. I encourage you to sign this petition if you agree that these sites should be removed. Go here to sign the petition: http://www.gopetition.com/petition/42229.html

Ken Ham loves lying to children

Would you be proud to tell your children that the moon was really made from cheese? Or that the Sun orbited the Earth? Well, Ken Ham is proud that he tells children lies like the Earth is only 6000 years old, all the dinosaurs were vegetarian. He is proud that he is retarding the education of innocent vulnerable minds whom will later require years of remedial education should they choose to take a career in the sciences.

This is child abuse. It needs to end.


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Australian floods are because we sin?

The dimwits over at Answers in Genesis offered this brain fart today:

The floods in Australia and the devastation they caused are ultimately our fault—all of us—every human being. It is not God’s fault.… But instead we should be angry at sin—our sin.

Yeah, its not the weather or nature. No. The floods are caused by god because he is angry at our sins. FFS! How can they be serious?


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Ray Comfort's self-loathing

I don't believe, as you do, that humans are primates. How insulting...to primates.  -POSTED BY RAY COMFORT ON 1/13/2011 08:16:00 AM 

Some questions for christians

I have a few questions for theists. I think they are reasonable questions that most christians will have a very hard time answering. Please refrain from quoting scripture. I know the bible rather well and I am interested in your view, not the bible's.

1) Assuming god is omniscient, meaning he has all knowledge. Knowledge must be acquired and verified as accurate. How did god acquire his knowledge? How did he verify it as accurate?

2) Assuming god is all powerful, what are the limits of that power? Can god make a cat give birth to an elephant? Can god turn an bean into a preacher? I won't get into the problems with contradictions related to omnipotence.... yet.

3) What is god's purpose? What was he doing before he created the universe? Why would be need to create the universe?

4) How can god be three persons in one? How do you justify calling yourself a monotheist when 1+1+1 must always be three?

5) If the bible was true, accurate, and complete, it would be the final authority on every topic. Yet clearly, it fails on matters of science, history, and even mathematics. How do you come to terms with that?

6) I maintain that if the christian god exists, he is evil by human standards. Many christians try to defend the evils of the OT by saying that god can do whatever he wants; that he is above his own laws and making things good or evil at his whim. This is by definition an amoral being (without morals). How can an amoral being give moral laws when morality has no meaning to that being?

I will ask more questions later... but this is a good start.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.

What atheists believe (part 2)

4) Of the Four Causes in nature proposed by Aristotle (material, formal, efficient, and final), which of them are real? Do final causes exist?

Not enough context to give a good answer.

5) Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?

We are imperfect beings. Perfection doesn't exist in anything remotely complex. Objective experiences  would require that we process ever input perfectly from all points of view. We simply can't do that, so we are stuck with the alternative. 

6) Why is the human mind intentional, in the technical philosophical sense of aboutness, which is the referral to something besides itself? How can mental states be about something? 

 Question is meaningless to me. If someone will clarify it, I will give it a go...

7) Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)

Morals are simply a sense of fairness. It can be seen in other social mammals. It comes from nature in that treating fellow social members of your unit fairly increases your chances to breed, remain in the group, have your young cared for, etc. 

8) Why is there evil?

If you mean people who do bad things, because some people lack that sense of fairness. We care for all people and their kids. So morality is no longer being selected for in the same sense it would be if our society was under more survival pressure. Again, there is no such thing as perfection in this world. 

What atheists believe (part 1)

Michael Egnor has Eight Questions for the New Atheists.  So I will take them on and answer them with my take. 

1) Why is there anything?

Simply. A state of nothingness can't exist. Even nothing is something. When I tell you to think of nothing, you can't. A state of nothingness is unstable and can't exist. 

2) What caused the Universe?

Whatever it was, it wasn't god. When you impose god as the cause, you get too many other stupid questions that pop up. What was god doing before the universe? Why now? Why us? What happens after for that eternity of which the bible speaks? What caused god? etc. I subscribe to the idea that cosmology will find the likely cause and whatever that is, gods will not  be part of the answer.


Watch a pot of water on the stove. As it approaches boiling, bubbles spontaneously form at the base of the pot. Same as our universe in some respects. 

3) Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?

Laws are simply things we see in nature. To assume that something put the laws there is absurd. The are part of nature, just as gravity is a by-product of having mass, that electrons have a negative charge. They weren't made to be like this and to have these laws, but the laws are our way of describing what we observe.

More to come later.....