"God Said It, That Settles It"

Deity's evidence muddled, contradictory as Creation Mega-Conference wraps

Ronald Bailey | July 21, 2005

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Batten implied to his audience that such contentions among scientists mean that the whole field of paleo-anthropology has been discredited. However, such disagreements among scientists are not a sign of weakness; they are instead evidence of a field that is still developing.

To cut through all the controversies, horticulturist Batten told the conferees that he was going to prune and graft onto the tree of human ancestry as depicted by the Smithsonian Institution. Batten proceeded to systematically prune away many of the earliest branches in the Smithsonian tree of human ancestry, lopping off Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus garhi, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis. Batten portrays himself as bravely cutting through a corrupt and self-serving evolutionist literature to show that none of the early hominids depicted by the Smithsonian are human ancestors.

But hold on a minute. Close inspection of the Smithsonian early human phylogeny graphic finds that in fact all possible ancestors trimmed by Batten are connected by dotted lines and question marks. Contrary to what Batten implies, the Smithsonian is not claiming that it is settled science that creatures like Ardipithecus ramidus and Homo rudolfensis are human ancestors; only that they might be shown to be so as scientific discoveries advance. Batten also claims to have discerned that Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens are all simply human. He fails to mention that the Smithsonian agrees, and joins all three with solid lines suggesting that science has strongly demonstrated that they are all connected.

With Batten's lecture, my time among the creationists came to an end. Just as the Reverend Jerry Falwell promised, there were no snake-handlers at the Creation Mega-Conference. Instead the conferees were a bunch of decent people trying to make sense of the world and live good lives. The deeply saddening thing is that these decent people have come to believe they have to reject modern science in order to do so.