Critic of creationism seminar 'made a number of false statements'
Editor:
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I just concluded a speaking engagement in your area and happened to read the letter against us by Joe Fausnight (Feb. 20, "Answers in Genesis' founder's visit will espouse "clearly bad science").
He made a number of false statements, and has also grossly misunderstood the creation/evolution issue. Examples:
I have never tried or advocated to have evolution "banned from the classroom." That is patently false. I would be pleased, though, if instructors taught real observational science and explained the limitations of origins' science.
To say that "Noah cursed Ham's children to enslavement" is absurd. Fausnight needs to read Genesis chapter 9, where he would find that there was a curse placed on one of Ham's sons, Canaan - and it had nothing to do with "enslavement" in the sense of slavery.
Fausnight claims that "evolution, in fact, denies racial superiority". I must respectfully suggest that Fausnight read Darwin's Descent of Man, published ten years after Origin of Species, in which Darwin divided mankind into different races (even into subspecies). As the famous late Stephen J. Gould (evolutionist professor at Harvard) once stated: "Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory." (Go to www.AnswersInGenesis.org for more quotes like these.)
In addition, Darwin's bulldog in Germany, Ernst Haeckel, published the following quote: "I consider the Negro to be a lower species of man, and cannot make up my mind to look upon him as 'a man and a brother,' for the gorilla would then also have to be admitted into the family."
And in the biology textbook used in most public schools in the U.S. in 1925, students were taught (based on evolution): "At the present time there exist upon the earth five races ... the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America."
One last thing for Fausnight. You don't need the sun for photosynthesis - you just need light. Read Genesis chapter 1, where it states that God created light on day one, before He created plants.
Ken Ham, president/CEO
Answers in Genesis
Hebron, Ky.