We are not going to spend this, our last essay, entirely on Jeff Childs's April essay, primarily because Childs himself assiduously avoided any discussion of the actual topic, biblical inconsistencies and the literal interpretation of Genesis. CSFNM's response dodged the issue entirely.

We thank CSFNM for agreeing to this newsletter/internet debate. After a year's worth of essays, we have concluded that the cultures of NMSR and CSFNM are indeed very different. Within NMSR, we expect those members who represent us to the rest of the world to use good science, defensible data, and logical arguments. NMSR members are not afraid to disagree with each other on matters of science, and we often have spirited debates over issues such as global warming or cold fusion.

But CSFNM appears to operate with a different culture, one in which no internal criticisms are encouraged. Several statements in CSFNM's essays are easily shown to be patently false, yet no internal CSFNM discussions or peer review on these issues ever seems to take place.

In Essay 1A, Roger Lenard made the unfounded claim that "Evolution alternatively claims that birds evolved from reptiles or they didn't…" NMSR challenged Lenard to show even one evolutionist who says that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs OR reptiles, but Lenard was never able to supply any supporting data.

In Essay 2A, Lenard wrote that "the Big Bang model cannot explain the ubiquity of water as a consequence of post Bang nucleosynthesis," but we noted in Essay 2B that "We can see enough water being created in the Orion Nebula to fill the Earth's oceans 60 times per day." NMSR provided a source, the McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology; but what is Lenard's source?

In Essay 3B, Lenard claimed that thousands of gigajoules are required to form information-bearing sequences in an unspecified amount of DNA. This claim is preposterous -- why didn't someone in CSFNM call Lenard on this error?

In Essay 5B, Lenard said that "Fisher's analysis shows that if the SV [selection value] is 1% the probability of survival in a single generation is 2%." We pointed out that this statement is flat wrong, and that Fisher really said that the value is 63.58% for a single generation[1]. When Lenard wrote "Simpson estimated the SV at 0.1% or 1/500 successful selections (births)," that was also wrong: Simpson claimed that a .1% selection value means 1,000 out of 1,999, slightly over 50%[2]. Where is the peer review?

In Essay 6A, Childs wrote about a "violation of logical equivocation if the creation were anything other than seven literal days." Doesn't anyone at CSFNM know what "equivocal" really means?

NMSR could never produce essays like those coming from CSFNM. We insist on defensible sources and, most importantly, accuracy of our statements. We are amazed and dismayed at CSFNM's apparent disregard for the Truth.

REFERENCES (not part of word count)

1. Fisher, R.A., 1930, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p.76.

2. Simpson, G.G., 1953, The Major Features of Evolution, New York: Columbia Univ. Press, p. 117.

THIS ESSAY WAS POSTED ON MAY 2ND, 2001.

This is Essay 6B in the NMSR/CSFNM Debate Series.

Links for all essays can be found here.