 |
| |
| |
|
Refuting Compromise: A Biblical and Scientific Refutation of "Progressive Creationism" (Billions of Years) As Popularized by Astronomer Hugh Ross
|
|
|
Average Rating:  out of 32 Reviews
|
Price: $14.99
|
|
Sale: $3.99
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Master Books
|
|
EAN (European Article Number): 9780890514115
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Paperback
|
|
Author: Jonathan Sarfati
|
|
Publisher: Master Books
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 231.7652
|
|
Publication Date: 2004-04
|
|
Reading Level: 416
|
|
|
| |
|
Description: With brilliant clarity, Jonathan Sarfati, author of the best-selling Refuting Evolution (1 and 2) has produced a comprehensive and ringing refutation of the position of "progressive creationist" Hugh Ross, whose views are causing massive confusion about science and the Bible. This book is one of the most powerful biblical and scientific defenses of a straightforward view of Genesis creation ever written.
|
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
Customer Reviews
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
Review Summary: Excellent. |
Date: 2008-06-24 |
|
| |
|
Details: This is a very good book. Gives a thorough refutation of long-age compromise. It is written with laymen in mind, but has sections that go in depth. An excellent book, especially useful for Pastors, Teachers and Christians of all denominations. |
| |
|
Review Summary: Sola Scriptura |
Date: 2007-05-23 |
|
|
| |
Details: Dr. Sarfati has done a brillant job of refutation in this book. He lays bare the nonsense of finite opinions against infinite revelation.
I'd just like Dr. Hugh Ross and all the self proclaimed science critics to please explain how they can 'know' that the earth is 4.5 billion years old? I mean how can they possibly 'know' they have the absolute true and final answer? Just what do they compare their calculated ages to? Just what 4.5 billion year old object of 'proven known age' do they calibrate their methods and instuments against anyway? How can they possibly know they have the right answer? Their attempt to prove the age of the earth is insane and a philosophical category mistake. Finite man beginning with himself as referent can never know the true age of earth!
Well, I guess the only sane, logical and rational answer is that science is never final, it only is an 'approximation'of the truth or science can only assert that it is only 'probable' that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Science and scientists take great pride in dealing only with the facts, right; quantification is the rule.
Ok then, please quantify how 'approximate' 4.5 billion years is to the true age of the earth and what is the 'probability' that this approximation is approximate to WHAT? Please post your calculations and explain how you got there so any thinking person can have a good laugh! |
| |
|
Review Summary: Great overview - don't believe the negative reviews |
Date: 2007-03-11 |
|
|
| |
Details: This book is very helpful for getting your arms around the overview of the evidence against the compromise view of 'progressive creationism,' made popular recently by the bizarrely inconsistent (unscientific & unbiblical) astronomer Hugh Ross.
Sarfati lays out the inconsistencies, both scientifically and Biblically, of the 'progressive creationism' ideology (and all non-literal ideologies), in a way even a novice creationist may understand.
Don't believe the negative reviews from pseudo-scientific religionists (yes, evolution IS a religion...and requires MUCH more 'faith' than believing the Bible). |
| |
|
Review Summary: Embarassingly bad |
Date: 2006-11-07 |
|
| |
Details: I stopped reading materials published by Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research after reading an article on the ICR web site that claims the speed of light has slowed down over the last few thousand years. That is absolutely preposterous and insulting to any reasonably intelligent person. Mathematics is not a science of ambiguity. I am not less of a Christian or believer because I use the brain God gave me to think about things. But the pseudo-science propagated by these folks is embarassing and makes Christians look bad. The personal attack against Hugh Ross is unnecessary and renders this book as the work of an amateur. I enjoy Ross' work because he simply looks at nature and science, from the point of view of "God made this...and it is magnificent". His work is not about attacking other people.
|
| |
|
Review Summary: Refuting Reality: Medieval Babble as Popularized by Johathan Sarfati |
Date: 2006-09-30 |
|
|
| |
Details: "Refuting Compromise" completes Sarfati's tendentious trilogy of fundamentalist Young Earth Creationist (YEC) pulp-fiction. Companion volumes (reviewed separately) include "Refuting Evolution" and "Refuting Evolution 2." Chronicling the inane and irresolvable partisan spat between young and old earth creationists brings Shakespeare to mind - "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Normally I wouldn't read or review tripe like this - but medieval dogmas so corrosive and inimical to a reality-based worldview require rigorous rebuke and reprobation. Before resorting to fundamentalist newspeak bible-babble Sarfati takes a short detour by way of character assassination and trashes Hugh Ross, a leading proponent of the Old Earth Creationism. A scientifically literate secularist could at least establish a dialog with Ross. Any conversation with Sarfati would founder on rocky crags of rampant superstition, magical thinking, and a hermetically sealed hermeneutic with no explanatory or predictive power whatsoever.
As an employee of Answers in Genesis (AiG) Sarfati had to sign a "Statement of Faith" that, among other things, includes the following:
"BASICS ARTICLE 3: The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the Earth and the universe."
"GENERAL ARTICLE 6: No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."
Discerning the nature of reality challenges human intellect even when armed with the formidable tools of science, philosophy, and reason. By signing this statement Sarfati has unconditionally surrendered to intensely subjective and unverifiable special revelation. In pithier terms he's chosen to bring a knife to a gun fight.
The pitiful 'creationist geochronology and cosmology' scattered throughout "Refuting Compromise" regurgitates erroneous hypothesis and junk findings wished into existence by the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) group - a collective of various crank-science Young Earth Creationists whose shallow litany of fallacious non-peer reviewed arguments includes: Helium diffusion in zircon crystals, C14 in coal and diamonds, and my personal favorite - Polonium halos.
Although this drivel occasionally hoodwinks unwary biblical literalists the scientific community (ranging from evangelicals to atheists) remains unimpressed. Sarfati also swills deeply from the capacious trough of ignorance and superstitious fancy promulgated by Answers in Genesis, a delusional creation-cult masquerading as a ministry to which he, utilizing sperm bank euphemism, makes deposits.
Let's examine Sarfati's claim that red blood cells were found in a late Cretaceous T. rex fossil some 70 million years old. Sarfati immediately declares victory over the non-existent yet necessary - for fund raising purposes anyway - evil secular humanist and Darwinist conspiracy and declares his cretinous creationist timeline of some 6,000 years triumphant.
Next time Jonathan read the primary literature - Schweitzer, Mary H., Mark Marshall, Keith Carron, D. Scott Bohle, Scott C. Busse, Ernst V. Arnold, Darlene Barnard, J. R. Horner, and Jean R. Starkey, 1997a. Heme compounds in dinosaur trabecular bone. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 94: 6291-6296 - before putting pen to paper. All the data supported the conclusion that the T. rex fossil in question contained fragments of hemoglobin molecules. "The most likely source of these proteins is the once-living cells of the dinosaur." No red blood cells, only protein fragments.
Here is the abstract on the PNAS paper authored by Schweitzer et al:
"Six independent lines of evidence point to the existence of heme-containing compounds and/or hemoglobin breakdown products in extracts of trabecular tissues of the large theropod dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex. These include signatures from nuclear magnetic resonance and electron spin resonance that indicate the presence of a paramagnetic compound consistent with heme. In addition, UV/visible spectroscopy and high performance liquid chromatography data are consistent with the Soret absorbance characteristic of this molecule. Resonance Raman profiles are also consistent with a modified heme structure. Finally when dinosaurian tissues were extracted for protein fragments and were used to immunize rats, the resulting antisera reacted positively with purified avian and mammalian hemoglobins. The most parsimonious explanation of this evidence is the presence of blood-derived hemoglobin compounds preserved in the dinosaurian tissues."
The lead author of the PNAS paper, Mary Schweitzer, happens to be an evangelical Christian who notes that "If God is who He says He is, He doesn't need us to twist and contort scientific data. The thing that's most important to God is our faith. Therefore he's not going to allow Himself to be proven by scientific methodologies."
Creationists routinely accuse Schweitzer of collaboration, conspiracy, or worse: "It rips my guts out," she says. "These people are claiming to represent the Christ that I love. They're not doing a very good job. It's no wonder that a lot of my colleagues are atheists." She told one zealot, "You know, if the only picture of Christ I had was your attitude towards me, I'd run."
Molecular paleontology - an exciting new branch of science - has been opened up by Schweitzer's insights and research; proof that workers of any religious tradition, or none at all, can be good scientists since science is based on methodological naturalism - not the medieval demon-haunted supernatural religious conceits Sarfati abjectly wallows in.
Over the past two hundred years scientific advances in a number of disciplines, ranging from cosmology to physics and geology, have demolished YEC pretensions and allowed researchers to determine the age of the Earth with remarkable accuracy - 4.54 billion years (plus or minus 1%). For additional information, and the fascinating history of how multiple lines of scientific inquiry and evidence converged to support this finding, try Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies: The Age of Earth and its Cosmic Surroundings or The Age of the Earth by G. Brent Dalrymple.
A Pb/Pb isochron age, determined from samples of the Earth and meteorites, is the preferred technique used to calculate the age of the Earth. This method measures three isotopes of Lead (Pb-206, Pb-207, and either Pb-208 or Pb-204). The resulting Pb-206/Pb-204 versus Pb-207/Pb-204 ratios are then plotted on a graph.
If the reservoir of matter from which the solar system formed had a uniform distribution of Pb isotope ratios, then any plot made at the time of formation for objects derived from that matter would fall on a single point.
The amount of Pb-206 and Pb-207 changes over time since any primordial Uranium decays to these end products (U-238 decays to Pb-206 and U-235 decays to PB-207). Consequently the data points inevitably diverge. Samples with higher Uranium-to-Lead ratios will express the greatest change in Pb-206/Pb-204 and Pb-207/Pb-204 values.
If the solar system also formed from source material with uniform Uranium isotope distribution ratios then a plot of the data points will fall on a single line. The slope of this line can be used to calculate the amount of time (age) since the original matter pool separated into discrete objects.
Sarfati would undoubtedly object to the assumptions noted above. Unfortunately for him the validity of these assumptions is elegantly tested by plotting the Pb/Pb ratio data. The actual underlying assumption is that, if these requirements have not been met, then there is no reason for the data points to fall on a line.
Every time a credible researcher or lab runs these tests on valid samples and plots the results, the data points fall on a line. Not only is the age of the Earth determined, the underlying assumptions are verified - something Morris never bothers to tell the reader. Scientific case closed. The Earth is old, immensely old, deep time old, 4.54 billion years old, but the author can't deal with the result since they overthrow his childish religious conceits and cherished creation myth.
Even when anomalous Pb/Pb isochron dates (from invalid samples, sloppy lab work, or both) are deliberately cherry-picked by YECs the outcome is not in favor of a young Earth. One particularly notorious example (Woodmorappe, 1979, p.113) only proved that Pb/Pb dates are far more likely to be too young than too old. Sarfati and Wodmorappe need the dates to be too old if their viewpoint is correct. Once again reality-based science trumps myth-based creationism - in spite of creationist attempts to load the dice!
Does the fringe theology and make believe 'science' championed by this book justify overturning centuries of spectacular advances in cosmology, astronomy, physics, geology, paleontology, chemistry, and biology? Should we overthrow reason and embrace a new post-modern medievalism as we hurtle toward a second Dark Age? Absolutely not.
Sarfati can't even present a valid case, let alone make it. Farce is tragedy the second or third time around, and so is this book. |
| |
|
| |
Similar Products
|
|
|
| |
This Product is similar to and may be found in the Following Categories:
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
