The Leaning Tower of Babinski

Babinski has posted an unresponsive response to something I posted:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/05/flat-earth-flood-geology-young-earth.html

It’s hard to know how to reply since, although this is ostensively in response to something I wrote, he spends most of his time shadowboxing with other opponents.

For example, he devotes a fair amount of time on ICR and AiG, with a passing reference to Kurt Wise. How is this terribly germane to the version of YEC that I’ve defended?

He also raises conventional objections to YEC dating. Okay, but once again, how is that relevant to the supporting arguments which I’ve used in defense of my own position?

I’d add that writers like John Byl, Kurt Wise, and Richard Milton have challenged conventional dating schemes. But Babinski has a habit of attacking proxies. He acts as though, if he can successfully attack Henry Morris, then that somehow translates into a successful attack on every other critic of conventional dating schemes.

Moving along: “Walton admits in his commentary that the ancient Hebrews, and the author of Genesis, assumed a flat cosmos and a solid firmament.”

Even if that is Walton’s opinion, not all scholars agree with that assessment, so merely citing on scholar’s opinion (in this case, Walton’s) doesn’t settle the issue. You need to compare the respective arguments.

“Whether or not one also assumes that the creation story in Genesis may be interpreted as a metaphor of the tabernacle-tent spoken of in Exodus is another question. Such a view of the cosmos as a house or tent (built flatly and on a firm foundation) does not lay [sic.] outside of ancient near eastern assumptions in general, for instance note the 'wall-ring' representations of the firmament lying above a flat earth in ancient Egyptian iconography, or ancient mestopotamian cosmologies in general.”

The intertextual parallels are more specific than just a generic “house” or “tent.”

“And more importantly, the lack of any insight into how the cosmos is truly shaped, means that the ancients wrote and assumed things on par with the pre-scientific knowledge of their day, and not a sign that one can cite that Genesis demonstrates in was composed via special inspiration.”

This is a very confused criticism, and unresponsive to anything I wrote. Gen 1 is silent on the “true shape” of the cosmos—since that is not the author’s concern.

This doesn’t mean that Moses was “assuming” a prescientific view of the world. Silence doesn’t affirm or deny anything in particular.

Babinski seems to think that Gen 1 would need to anticipate modern astronomy or cosmology to be divinely inspired. Of course, that begs a number of questions. On the one hand, it assumes that the only way to evidence its inspiration is to anticipate modern science. On the other hand, it assumes that scientific theories are true or truth-valued.

Continuing:

“He's describing the difficulties of dating the exact chronological order of fossils that lay relatively close together in the geological record…”

Is this all that Gee is describing? He makes far more sweeping denials in his book than Babinski’s minimalistic gloss.

“Hence, Gee's complaint about the drawing of direct lines between species in textbooks. The actual evolutionary lines of descent are more complex, and what we have are the fossils of the most robust cousin species that were living during certain overlapping eras.)”

I have a question for Babinski:

Ed,

Tell us in your own opinion what constitutes the remaining fossil evidence for evolution after you exclude everything that Gee excluded in his book? What’s left over, exactly?

Moving along:

Babinski then quotes a couple of statements by Gee, from private email correspondence, with links to other statements. This is ironic in several respects.

i) Gee accuses the Discovery Institute of using unauthorized, selective quotations from his book.

When, therefore, Babinski publishes selective quotes from his private email correspondence with Gee, isn’t he guilty of “quote-mining” Gee and thereby repeating the very offense that Gee faults the Discovery Institution for committing?

ii) Babinski also makes use of “unauthorized, selective quotations” from my own post. So Babinski is a repeat offender.

iii) Likewise, whenever a critic of YEC or ID theory quotes his opponents (say, in a book review), he could also be accused of “quoting-mining” and using “unauthorized, selective quotations” from ID and YEC writers.

iv) The Discovery Institute responded to Gee’s emotional complaint:

http://www.reviewevolution.com/press/pressRelease_NCSECampaign.php

Why doesn’t Babinski acknowledge their response?

Gee also says: “Darwinian evolution by natural selection is taken as a given in IN SEARCH OF DEEP TIME, and this is made clear several times e.g. on p5 (paperback edition) I write that ‘if it is fair to assume that all life on Earth shares a common evolutionary origin...’ and then go on to make clear that this is the assumption I am making throughout the book. For the Discovery Institute to quote from my book without reference to this is mischievous.”

But the Discovery Institute identified Gee as an evolutionist at the time it quoted him.