Creationism on UK radio

[Squawk]

This annoyed me on Wednesday

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00khj2q

It was on radio 5 live just after all the hoohaa about IDA. They got one caller, a damn creationist. Anyhoo, I've decided to do something about it so I'm going to email the organisation in question, repeatedly.

The organisation is Christian Voice, the caller was called Stephen Green and his bullshit commences at 1h 55m and 30 seconds, give or take a second. Listen to it, weep a bit for the state of education in this Country, then join me in doing something about it.

My email to them was as follows

Hi.

On Wednesday of this week as I journeyed to work my radio was tuned into five live at the time that your director, Stephen Green, gave an interview.

The subject of the interview was the discovery of the 47 million year old fossil nicknamed Ida, and it's consequences for our understanding of the origins of the various primates, and the interview gave rise to various questions which I felt needed addressing.


Mr Green makes reference to animals reproducing after their "kind". I wonder if you could provide me with a definition of kind that I can actually apply to biological classification. Is it equivalent to a given biological classification as used in taxonomy, say species, order, genus, family etc? My Green seems eager to get ID taught in schools as science, it is surely only reasonable to provide a rigorous definition of kind if this is to be the case.

Mr Green next made reference to yeast evolving in the lab, going through generation after generation and always producing more yeast. I must admit I do not understand why he did so, since this is entirely in line with evolutionary theory. Mr Green used this line of reasoning to suggest that evolution is not possible and so I am left to wonder at his motives and principles. He used a prediction, indeed a central tenet of evolutionary theory but somehow drew the conclusion that this evidence against evolution? Surely this can only be described as deception?

Sticking with his own example of yeast and going through the scientific literature we find that yeast is often studied to better understand evolution. As a very quick aside I present this paper
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7144/abs/nature05856.html
published in the journal nature, one of many hundreds if not more studying the evolution of yeast.

Then we get to outright lies. Mr Green suggests that for a given mutation in the genome of a species that reproduces sexually to propogate throughout the population then both a male and a female must develop the trait/mutation at the same time and mate with each other. This can only be called a lie. In his position he cannot be unaware that this is not the case. The only reason to utter such falsehoods on the radio must be the desire to dupe people into the mistaken belief that evolutionary theory is not evidentially supported, clearly a false position.

Mr Green then compared biological evolution to a hand dryer, a mechanical object. Even to the layman this must have sounded absurd, Mr Green must have known the idiocy of his statement at this time but chose to say it on the radio anyway. Once again I feel his motives must be called into question.

Mr Green then takes the presenters lack of knowledge on the subject to raise the schools issue, arguing that ID should be taught in schools, presumably in science lessons. That ID is demonstrably not science and that it is a faith position and nothing more instantly disqualify it from being taught as science.

For whatever reason Mr Green then jumps on two or three challenges for evolutionary theory, asking about colouration in birds and the rabbits tail colouration. Given that he raised this questions Mr Green surely must have considered that they may have already been answered and looked to the scientific literature, or asked an evolutionary biologist. It is clear that he has not done so since even a layman such as myself can answer both of these questions, or at the very least provide highly plausible hypothesis which could then be tested. In the case of hidden colouration Mr Green is presumably aware of genetic drift and neutral mutations, of similar examples in nature such as the spread of blue eyes in humans. In the case of the rabbits tail does Mr Green not even consider that a white tail might serve a purpose other than to alert a predator to its location?

Then we have another lie, the idea that rocks are used to date fossils and the fossils are then used to date the rocks, a circular process. At best this is a gross oversimplification and makes a mockery of the rigorous checks and protocols in place when performing any form of radiometric dating. Is Mr Green aware of the various independent calibration curves used to ensure the accuracy of dating techniques?

Mr Green then bounces onto the realm of physics and proposes that radiometric dating is not reliable since physical constants may not have always been so. Could he tell me how he would account for the earth being completely molten if decay rates were increased to the rates required for his own dates to be of value?

We next have a veiled reference to the global flood from Noah. This raises various questions.
1. Why do we not find a global layer of sedimentary rock as we would expect from a global flood?
2. Why would we not recognise this particular layer as being exactly what it is when flood deposits are extremely well understood, as is their roll in rock formation?
3. What process would enable rocks to form in such a short space of time as implied by the global flood hypothesis, and why hasn't Mr Green or one of his collegauges conducted an experiment to verify this (fill a pressure chamber with sediment and water, increase the pressure to noah flood proportions and wait. See if you get rock after 6 months (hint, you won't).

I happen to agree with Mr Green on one point. This fossil is not really a missing link, in the sense that that ship sailed, long ago. What this fossil is is a well preserved and valuable example of a creature that helps us understand our evolutionary history. It could be argued that each new fossil creates two new gaps.

Of course he then talks about the animal being "designed", could he tell us what his justification for that statement is?


My inclination is to suspect that Mr Greens intention with this interview is to lie and deceive those listeners who do not have a thorough grasp of the science in question into believing that his own myth based doctrine is equally valid. That he has to resort to lies and dishonesty to do so is extremely telling.

 

[AndromedasWake]

Very nice and comprehensive debunk! For those who listen to the show, skip to about 1:55:20 to hear the segment with Green. He's a notorious trouble maker in the UK. After Hurricane Katrina, he went on record to say that god had purified New Orleans with his wrath. I can remember seeing it on TV and being sick in my mouth. He's also your typical fundamentalist homophobe, happy to spray bullshit left, right and center but cries if anyone speaks out against his religion. Oh, and he strongly opposed the atheist bus campaign, basically stating atheists would need to disprove the existence of god. But when he tried to get his own HPV vaccine campaign run, and was denied, he cried free speech and stated that the burden of proof was not upon him.

He's a two-faced, grubby little toe-rag. And this interview demonstrates that he, like all fundamentalists, knows less than nothing about evolution. One day, I'm going to debate Stephen Green on live TV and tear him a new one.

Edit: The host also leaves me dismayed at the lack of public understanding of evolution.

 

[Squawk]

Edit: The host also leaves me dismayed at the lack of public understanding of evolution.

TBH I think it's that more than anything that really annoyed me and served to highlight the need for a real scientist of some description to be the guest caller. The host has no comeback, indeed doesn't even realise the BS he is being fed and doesn't realise how unrelated to this particular fossil it all is. I would have loved to listen to someone linked with the find to get a real scientists opinion. The host's knowledge, or lack of, demonstrates perfectly why this should have been the case.