Dinosaurs and the Bible, Ham K
From EvoWiki
| Multiple books have been published with the title, "Dinosaurs and the Bible". This one is in regards to a booklet written by Ken Ham. Please see the disambiguation page for the others. |
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Contents |
Introduction
"Dinosaurs and the Bible" is a booklet by Ken Ham, distributed through Answers in Genesis. It is intended to be bought in bulk by the AIG faithful and then distributed freely to those deemed to be in need of its message of salvation and anti-evolutionism.
While it's difficult to evaluate how convincing it might be to someone not versed in the evidence and details of the "debate", to anyone so educated the booklet can only be described as fundamentally vapid. While one would not expect a booklet of its size to be a comprehensive review of the creationist position in the debate, one would expect at least some attempt to justify the creationist position with evidence. However, only once in the entire book (chapter 11) does Ham make any attempt to support his claims with anything other than Biblical references. The bulk of the book consists of casting aspersions on scientists, declaring the Bible correct, and blatant hypocrisy, with a final section reserved for preaching.
Throughout this review, all italicized text in quoted material was present in the original text.
Cover
The inaccuracies begin with the cover. Pointing out how badly drawn the picture is is probably a cheap shot, but in this age of masterfully drawn dinosaur reconstructions, the sleepy-eyed "Tyrannosaurus" with it's arms oddly jutting out to the side and perspective issues seems rather sad.
The picture juxtaposes a mountain with a boat on it, presumably the Ark, which, given its size, makes the mountain more of a rocky hill. To the right of the mountain is a medieval town, complete with churches with steeples (which were not found on churches until the middle ages).
The message is clear: Dinosaurs co-existed with humans after the flood. But if the message is clear, the timeframe isn't. How long after the flood is this supposed to be? The Ark is intact, but the town is fairly large, requiring a good sized population to have built. Of course, it would be several thousand years before people started putting steeples on churches. Plus, most creationists argue that the dinosaurs became extinct in short order after the flood, while the Earth had yet to recover (as if it would). The grassy fields on this cover clearly postdate this.
On the whole, the cover reflects the creationists' slipshod approach to facts and details: Make a point and don't worry about the accuracy or even internal consistency.
Credentials
Ken Ham suffixes his name, "B.App.Sc, Dip.Ed." Given that neither degree is of any relevance to the matter of the book, their use in this context is apparently an attempt to impress people unfamiliar with the actual nature of the degrees. Use of degree suffixes when speaking on a subject to which they are irrelevant is considered inappropriate by ethicists. (I would like to link to an ethics statement on this topic, but I can't find one. Any help is appreciated.)
Section 1: Is There Really a Mystery About Dinosaurs?
Ken gives a lot of not particularly mysterious questions and tells us that people are fascinated by "these mysterious monsters." Fair enough. He then says:
- "The truth of the matter, however, is that there are no real mysteries at all, once you have key information that is not generally known and is withheld from the public."
(Check to see if quote starts at the front of the sentence)
So, right from the start, we're into the Conspiracy Theory of Science. Somewhere, information is being withheld! Of course, nowhere in the book does it actually state what this information is. This is a typical creationist tactic: Argument by Innuendo.
The truth is, there are any number of mysteries about dinosaurs. We know very little of them, only what can be teased from the few fossil remains we have been lucky enough to find. But creationism is largely about rejecting mystery and asserting that everything is comfortably known. Ken Ham has no patience or interest in mysteries of how the dinosaurs lived or died. He's here to sell an ideology and discussions of the wonderful detective story that is paleontology are meaningless to selling creationism.
Section 2: Did Dinosaurs Really Exist?
Ken says that dinosaurs really existed.
This might not seem like a major revelation, but it is worth remembering that a few creationists continue to deny that fossils represent actual animals at all. Various creationist authors claim that fossils are faked by either Satan, scientists (to sell atheism), museums (to sell tickets), or, a personal favorite, "Time-traveling atheist scientists from the future in UFOs".
Section 3: When Were Dinosaurs Found?
Ken Ham offers two paragraphs reviewing of the early history of dinosaur discovery. Ken says that:
- "...a famous British scientist (and creationist), Dr. Richard Owen, coined the name 'Dinosauria,' meaning 'terrible lizard,' for this is what the huge bones made him think of."
While he correctly characterizes Dr. Owen as a creationist, he fails to mention that he was not a creationist in the sense of Ken Ham or any modern creationist organization. Dr. Owen accepted a world far older than a few thousand years, one built by multiple creation/destruction events of which Noah's Flood was only the most recent. Flood geology, as preached by AIG and Ken Ham, had already been considered and rejected as irreconcilable with the evidence.
He also fails to mention that Dr. Owen considered the theropod dinosaurs to be like combinations of birds and lizards. While he did reject the idea that it might be transitional, he was one of the first people to document the mixture of traits between the birds and reptiles the theropod dinosaurs represented, and thus provided a mass of support for evolution, all of which Ken Ham denies exists.
No, Richard Owen may have been a creationist, but he was not a supporter of Ham's ideology.
Section 4: What Makes Dinosaurs "Different?"
In one sentence, he reveals exactly how little he knows about dinosaurs:
- "Other than the huge size of some dinosaurs, the major feature that really distinguishes dinosaurs from other reptiles (such as crocodiles) is the position of their limbs."
It would be impossible to distinguish dinosaurs from other reptiles, for much the same reason that it's impossible to distinguish a human from other fungus. It simply isn't a sensible claim. Humans aren't fungi, dinosaurs weren't reptiles. Also, he fails to mention the numerous other characters, such as skull, wrist and hip structure, that distinguish dinosaurs. Of course, all of those make them seem a lot like birds, which Ham feels the need to deny.
Furthermore, size isn't at all a distinguishing character of dinosaurs. Yes, many dinosaurs were large, but as even Ham recognizes in the next section, many were quite small. Furthermore, some "reptiles" were very large (i.e., Deinosuchus).
Section 5: How Big Were Dinosaurs?
Some were big, some were little. This section is actually largely accurate. Superfluous and irrelevant, but accurate.
Section 6: When Did Dinosaurs Live?
Four pages into the book (almost a fifth of the document) and Ken Ham finally gets to the subject at hand, sort of:
- "According to evolutionists, the dinosaurs 'ruled the Earth' for 140 million years, dying out about 65 million years ago. However, scientists do not dig up anything labeled with those ages. They only uncover dead dinosaurs (i.e., their bones), and their bones do not have labels attached telling how old they are. The idea of millions of years of evolution is just the evolutionists' story about the past."
Sadly for Ken Ham, some of the bones are labeled, with radioisotopes among other things. Rather than trying to debunk radioactive dating and other systems for dating ancient material, Ken simply pretends that it doesn't exist. He doesn't even bother to try and explain away the evidence that science uses to decide that the dinosaurs died 65 million years ago. He simply declares it a story and moves on. Remember this choice of words, though. It becomes important later.
Now, we have the old chestnut:
- "No scientist was there to see the dinosaurs live through this supposed dinosaur age."
Fair enough. No scientist was there to see the Aztec empire either, so that probably didn't exist. The Celts didn't exist either. No scientist saw the authors of the Bible, so that can be discarded as well. Oh, wait, we can't have that! Nope, don't apply his "logic" there! Isn't it funny how the creationists don't apply the same standards of evidence to their own "theories".
- "In fact, there is no proof whatsoever that the world and its fossil layers are millions of years old."
Really? Then what's all that stuff people read about in textbooks? Sure looked like evidence to me. In one sense, it's true, since there isn't any proof of anything, only evidence. On the other hand, again we have Ken applying a standard of truth (absolute proof) that he would never dream of applying to his own ideas.
- "Scientists only find the bones in the here and now, and because many of them are evolutionists, they try to fit the story of the dinosaurs into their view."
Like so many creationists, Ken puts the cart before the horse. One hundred and fifty years ago, creationist scientists tried desperately to fit the evidence into their creationist story. They failed and had to find another one. Ken, of course, won't mention this fact. It wasn't evolutionists who created evolution; it was creationists who couldn't reconcile the facts with their beliefs. This fact throws a spanner in the basis of Ken Ham's entire world view, though, so he must ignore it.
Notice some of the word choices above. Evolutionists, we're told, have "stories" and "try to fit" the evidence with their stories. What about the creationists?
- "Other scientists, called creation scientists, have a different idea about when the dinosaurs lived. They believe they can solve any supposed dinosaur mysteries and show how the evidence fits wonderfully with their ideas about the past, beliefs that come from the Bible."
According to Ham, scientists try to fit the evidence to their stories, but the word "try" isn't used here. Oh, no, creationists are succeeding! Furthermore, while scientists have "stories", creationists have ideas and beliefs. Ham's use of empty rhetorical tricks here makes an effective trap for the unwary.
- "The Bible, God's very special book (or collection of books, really), claims that each writer was supernaturally inspired to write exactly what the Creator of all things wanted them to write down for us so that we can know where we (and dinosaurs) came from, why we are here, and what our future will be."
And here we see that creationists understand the Bible as well as they understand science: not at all. Although a passage in Second Timothy does claim that scripture (which is not the same thing as the Bible) was inspired by God, there is no passage that could be mistaken for "exactly what [God] wanted them to write." In fact, the passage doesn't even suggest that God actively inspired them, rather that they were simply passively inspired (the way a sunrise inspires me to write poetry). In short, creationist ignorance knows no bounds.
Ken then discusses the age of the earth according to the Bible. At no point does he even attempt to present any evidence for their views, he simply refers to the Bible and calls it science.
In discussing the six days of creation, Ken says:
- "Furthermore, Bible scholars will tell you that the Hebrew word for day used in Genesis chapter one, can only mean an ordinary day in this context." (sic)
This is absolutely untrue or we wouldn't have "day = age" creationists insisting exactly the opposite. But then, creationists have never been big on consistency. Ham is cherry-picking his results, accepting only the opinion of only those experts who agree with him, ignoring the vast majority of others who do not.
Further, Ken ignores the possibility that the six days weren't contiguous. Yet again, other creationists would argue with this one, claiming that the six days were separated by millions of years. In short, Ken has no time for alternative ideas. He is too busy presenting a fantasy world where there is one, pure creationism facing a crumbling edifice of evolutionary ideas to deal with reality.
Next, Ken says that if we add up all the begats, and assume that Jesus was born in A.D. 1 (which is known to be false), then the earth is about 6000 years old. No non-biblical evidence for anything in this "creation science" is to be found anywhere.
- "Thus, if the Bible is right (and it is!), dinosaurs must have lived within the past thousands of years."
Gee, no wishy-washy "believing" or "stories" or "ideas" here. The Bible is right, so there! Of course, if the Bible is right, then Judas died in two completely contradictory ways on an Earth that is flat and doesn't move. It's not; sorry about that, but there you go.
| Continued in Part 2 |
