Thursday 17 October 2013

For those who worry that some home educators might be raising their children with a weird perspective on the world...

Chris Prater is offering us a tour of the natural history museum with a biblical, young earth, creationist, flood catastrophe viewpoint. For over 12s only, maximum 15 students plus parents. Book now and pay me asap to reserve your place.

It is in two parts and you need to attend both.
The first part is on Friday 25 October - geology.
The second part is on Friday 13 December - biology.

It will be 11.30am-12.30pm, then a 30 min lunch break, then 1pm-2pm.
We can travel together by train:

Cambridge 8.55am
Baldock 9.25am
Letchworth 9.29am
Stevenage 9.40am
Welwyn Garden City 9.51am
Kings Cross 10.19am

then tube trains

It costs £100 per session for the group, and he can take a maximum of 15 students plus parents. We will split the cost per person pro rata. If we have 15 students and four parents, that would be 19 people, so £5.26 per person.

I asked him what angle he takes and this was his reply:

"The basic angle I take is one which begins with the museum's view of the Biblical account of creation and the Flood as 'myth'. In the first workshop I then consider the rise of 'Plutonist' geology with its millions of years which began seriously to displace the 'Neptunist' (Biblical Flood) geology about 200 years ago.
I challenge the Plutonist philosophical base ('The present is the key to the past') and point out the weaknesses of radiometric dating which is used to 'scientifically' support the idea of an ancient earth. I consider also some of the difficulties inherent in assuming that the universe began with the Big Bang and how our solar system could have formed from such.

In the second (biology) workshop I begin by noting Darwin's contribution to the hypothesis of evolution and briefly outline what that hypothesis says. Then we seek the all important evidence to support this idea. As the NHM cannot show any series of transitional fossils to support any change from one species to another it dabbles in Haeckel's dubious embryonic 'Recapitulation Theory'. With mutations hardly able to provide a mechanism for evolution and the 'apes to man' transition a minefield of hoaxes, failures and far too little real evidence, I end with a glance at the lack of living transitional evidence to conclude that the hypothesis of evolution by natural selection is actually a modern (?) myth which woefully lacks supporting evidence, whereas the Biblical view is rather one which evidence in the field supports.

As for myself although I have an interest in science I would hesitate to describe myself as a 'scientist' as such (though my first degree was partially in geography). My main focus is on the Bible (with two degrees here) which I stand in awe of as the word of God.

I hope this helps you to see where I am coming from.

Feel free to ask further,

Chris"

2 comments:

  1. That's not my particular cup of tea, but people manage to believe all sorts of weird and wonderful things (homeopathy, transubstantiation, whatever) and still function as happy, productive members of society.

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  2. 'but people manage to believe all sorts of weird and wonderful things (homeopathy, transubstantiation, whatever) and still function as happy, productive members of society.'

    Which is of course quite true. There are Catholic astronomers and physicists, juts as there are doctors and surgeons who believe in homeopathy. Young earth creationism is a different matter entirely. To subscribe to this, one must reject practically all modern science; from genetics to geology, from cosmology to zoology, physics to chemistry. It means returning, intellectually, to the Middle Ages.

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