Episode Transcript
Welcome to faith and science. I'm Doctor John Ashton. Of course we know that evolution is being taught now in our schools widely.
And of course one of the arguments that comes up against teaching creation or intelligent design is, well, you know, why there must be reasons why it's not taught in schools. You know, all the scientists seem to believe in, you know, evolution. That's what we're taught at university.
But of course, very interesting to understand that the teaching of evolution has been ingrained in our schools now for some time. And any opposition to point out the errors in evolution and the major problems with evolution generally gets closed down. Now, it's interesting, back in the about 2005 there so much evidence had accumulated that evolution cannot explain the amazing structures that we see in biological systems, that there's overwhelming evidence that these systems must have been intelligently designed.
There's so much coordination of parts and so forth that the evidence seems overwhelming. And so this topic began to be discussed. But all at the same time there was tremendous resistance arose against the possibility of teaching intelligent design in schools.
I was just looking at an article back on the 21 October 2005, there was an Australian Broadcasting Commission programme published, teachers protest intelligent design. And so in January February 2006, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute published an article called Intelligent Design in the classroom. It was by Maggie Spenceley and she was a school teacher in the public school system.
And of course this was published as said in Chemistry Astray, which is the journal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. And interestingly in it, Professor Mike Archer, who was dean of science at the University of New South Wales at the time. He's reported in the articles making the assertion that evolution is more than just.
It's a model that consists of thousands of different theories and all the theories are testable and can be used to explain some aspect of the natural world. And in a way that is correct. We see evolution occurring, we see changes that are occurring, but the situation is that these changes can't explain the origin of new species.
And that's the important point that we need to understand. Now a little bit further on in the article that Mike Archer was cited as saying that he was very concerned about the teaching of intelligent design and he believes that id is using gods designers to explain some parts. And the most complex parts of the natural world are parts that science cannot yet explain.
He says that the involvement of gods cannot be tested using scientific methodology, therefore id should not be included. But it goes on to say that if we taught intelligent design, in other words, the existence of God in the classroom, it opens up the horrible door, this quoting him where we would be teaching astrology instead of astronomy, we could be doing flat earth and fork bending, water divining instead of real hydrology research. And all the silly things that, frankly, that have been tested and falsified are going to demand equal time in the science classes and the whole thing degenerates into absurdity.
And of course, it was quite interesting that the article goes on to say Jenny Macklin, deputy federal labour leader and shadow minister for education, appeared to support Archer's view when she stated that new theories must withstand tough scientific scrutiny before being taught in our classrooms. So I thought, wow, that's very, very interesting, because when we look at darwinism, it doesn't stand up. When we look at neo darwinism as they're trying to explain the origin of our species, it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.
And so I thought also linking the theory of intelligent design with astrology, spoon bending, flat earth theory, all these sort of things, I thought, this needs to be addressed. So I wrote an article and it was published in the April issue 2007 of Chemistry Australia, again, which is the journal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. It was a peer reviewed article, was published as a feature.
If I open the page, you can see there it's a feature article and I titled it a creationist view of the intelligent design debate, and that not all scientists accept that darwinian evolution was responsible for the diversity of life on earth. So I cited my references, ten or so references. Well, that really attracted a backlash.
A number of people, as soon as the journal came out, contacted the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and my article was deleted from the online version. Of course, they couldn't recall the hard copies, such as I've just shown you then. But on the online version, my article was deleted.
And it was interesting. There was in the next issue, may 2007 issue of Chemistry in Australia. So I look at the editorial there.
The editor, well, he wrote an apology and I'll read it in 2006. January, February issue, Maggie Spencer discussed a number of questions, issues about intelligent design and the science classroom, partly in response to reviews and outlook. John Ashton contributed an article entitled A creationist view and the Intelligent Design Debate, published in the April issue.
The editor has maintained a neutral position on both articles. The editor does encourage members to engage in scientific debate and publish both articles. In this spirit, as editor, I accept that in this case I may have made an error of judgement, intruding to include a discussion of intelligent design and apologise to those members who were offended.
In particular, some readers considered that John Ashton's article was an abuse of the scientific process and that the magazine should not be a platform for the propaganda of religious beliefs. Now, I think that's very interesting how they're changing the twist here. I published an article where I listed my evidence and again, it was peer reviewed as an article looking at the evidence.
It's interesting the editor went on to say science is a passport to making new discoveries and providing reliable descriptions of the natural world. To claim, as ashton did, that carbon 14 dating methods are unreliable or invalid by stating that we have, we need to remember that these methods cannot be validated for prehistorical dates, has no basis in science. It's interesting that he's putting his own words in.
What I actually said was that we need to remember that these methods cannot be validated for prehistorical dates. And the problem that we have is that we don't have validated methods. And I don't think the editors, in my view, understood what the process of validating a method is.
You have to have a standard that you have absolute control on. Now, radiocarbon methods are validated up to historical dates or for older dates, are calibrated using tree ring dendrology. Now, that is subject to a whole lot of other assumptions that, again, haven't been validated and proven.
So the method that is used to so called calibrate carbon 14 dating, you know, certainly hasn't been validated there. It's interesting to look at. They published three letters that were to come in.
And again, it's very interesting that one of the authors wrote in and said, I will not go in any way into refuting even the most untenable and made up arguments put forward in this feature article as this has been done by other authors and the most eminent biologists in the world on multiple occasions before. But again, no evidence, he doesn't cite any evidence that have refuted any of my arguments. Later on, there were other people wrote in that it is my concern that Professor Ashton and the editor who made the decision to publish this piece has done your magazine considerable harm.
But again, nobody states the evidence where I'm wrong. Another fellow wrote, as a long standing member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, I'm particularly concerned about the damage done to the reputation of the institute because of the ill advised publication of John Ashton's article. So it's interesting, as I said, as a result of those letters coming in, it was closed down.
I decided to try and contact some of those people because if I'm wrong and you claim that I'm wrong, then show me where I'm wrong. And so I attempted to phone some of those other professors. I got through to one, I introduced myself and I said, I understand you weren't very happy with my article in chemistry Australia.
What's the evidence that you have that I'm wrong? And his reply blew me away because what he said was, he said, well, look, we don't have the evidence yet, but we will. That article there. And the response inspired me to write the book Evolution Impossible, which was published in 2012.
And of course, if you go on to the television series on three, AVN Australia and look at evolution impossible, there we go through the arguments that I presented for evolution being absolutely impossible. And also, of course, there's the science conversation series where I go through chapter by chapter, the book demonstrating and providing the evidence that evolution is absolutely impossible. And of course, since that time, a number of scientists have put their names up on the descent from darwin.org
website. Other leading scientists, such as Professor James Tour in America, have spoken out and presented. We have overwhelming evidence now that evolution is absolutely impossible, much to the opposite of what these professors claimed at the time.
And when we're talking about this, of course, we mean evolution is explaining the origin of new body parts. Sure, evolutionary changes do occur, but they usually involve the loss of information, not the production of new body parts. You've been listening to faith and science, and if you want to relisten to this programme, remember just to google 3abnaustralia.org.au and click on the listen button. And if you find these programmes have been helpful, please tell other people about these programmes, please share them on your social media pages, put up links and so forth. And remember, there are many of the faith and science programmes, as you scroll down, that deal with a whole range of very interesting and relevant topics, to the point that we can know that evolution is impossible and we can have great confidence in believing that there is a creator God.
And while I think of it too, is another book was published by Professor Thomas Nagel, a professor of philosophy at the University of New York. It's called mind and the cosmos why the materialist neo darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. And that's published by Oxford University Press.
By the way, I'm Doctor John Ashton. Have a great day. You've been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia radio.
