I remember that 1983 PBS program on creationism—and Gish’s amazing frog proteins claim. Thanks for the flashback! Yes, Gish could come up with some amazing claims.
That reminds me of what I think was one of the last public interviews that Duane Gish did, not long before he died. Gish was the guest on Hugh Ross’ radio program. I can’t remember exactly what Gish said which obviously shocked Dr. Ross—but Gish was addressing Ross’ field of expertise in astrophysics and Ross said, “That is not supported by the evidence.” When Gish held his ground, Ross said something like, “I would be happy to organize a room full of astrophysicists at one of our academic conferences and you can explain what you just said. I guarantee that the scientists will unanimously disagree.” Ross said it politely but clearly. Gish also held his ground but I don’t think he agreed to the challenge.
That is one of my personal favorites because I remember it so well from John Whitcomb Jr.'s lectures. Of course, he got it from his hydrologist-engineer associate and co-author, Henry Morris. It was a great young earth argument with most audiences because people had no idea that there are natural process which remove salts from the oceans. They only know of how evaporation in bodies of water like the Dead Sea only get saltier over time. Investigating the salt-in-the-ocean argument was one of my routes out of that creation science world.
Indeed. That math also needs to include the numbers on beetle populations and the number of generations over which mutations and other evolutionary processes can make changes in allele frequencies over time. Otherwise one is prone to “The chance of that poker hand being drawn is so tiny that it might just as well be declared impossible.”
Bingo.
And yet international agrobusiness has been dependent on these mechanisms for a very long time.
(I won’t even launch a polyploidy subthread.)
That sounds like a lot of “ID theory” arguments I’ve heard over the years.