False Argument #7: Omnipresence Incompatible With The God Of Scripture

May 16, 2008

A traditional definition of God includes the characteristic of omnipresence, or the ability to be in all points in the universe at once, while simultaneously existing independent of the universe. The standard argument has always been, "How can one being be both completely separate from, yet thoroughly immersed in, the universe?" These two traits are apparently contradictory and seemingly cannot coexist coherently within one being.

The subatomic particles that result when atoms and atomic nuclei get fissioned display a peculiar characteristic known as "nonlocality," and the strange ability to be at once corpuscle and wave. The original EPR experiment (Einstein, Boris Podolski, Nathan Rosen) shows conclusively that particles which at one time shared the same system of coordinates remain instantly and enduringly correlated. (*the atomic condition, not the general use of the word) This nonlocality is completely irreverent of space-time, and it exists whether the time that separates the particles is measured in fractions of a second or billions of years of time, and it exists whether the particles are separated by millimeters or light-years of space. Students of world religions may notice the striking similarities to the Vedic concept of the Akashic Records. Since science now generally claims the universe was once a singularity, does it not stand to reason that every particle in our universe might have once shared the same system of coordinates, and as such may remain enduringly correlated in a way that is accessible to God?

The nonlocality ascribed to quantum phenomena may or may not extend beyond our universe or be characteristic of God, and it can by no means be considered proof of any scripture because science cannot verify a religious claim. But does it not stand to reason that if God created the universe, that God might remain correlated to the particles created, i.e., might not God exhibit principles strikingly similar to nonlocality? Are not the terms omnipresence and nonlocality at least loosely interchangeable?

In my opinion, the argument that omnipresence is incompatible with the God of the Bible is not a very strong argument, if a remotely similar concept can already be found in nature.





Spirit

May 15, 2008

The concept of a spiritual plane is a universal notion that has found expression in all cultures from antiquity to modern times. Goethe referred to it when he wrote, “I have a firm conviction that our spirit is a being of indestructible nature…” and Manly P. Hall echoes this sentiment with the following: “There are many levels of life which we cannot see and know, yet which certainly exist…” Indeed, our world scriptures speak of celestial beings including the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Koran and many others. The assertion that the true reality behind life is unseen or spiritual is a common one, and the Hebrew scriptures in particular contend that a human is a tripartite being consisting of body, soul and spirit.

Even if she is the most ardent skeptic, a truly objective scientist is forced to admit that the existence of spiritual phenomena is, at a bare minimum, possible. Open-minded scientists know that the idea itself is in accord with several lines of indirect evidence, both newly emerging and classic. I find it fallacious and closed-minded to assume that all we can experience empirically is all there is, mostly because the number of phenomena we can detect empirically grows in accordance with our technology and knowledge. Due to an unhealthy interpretation of the scientific method as the ultimate test of truth, modern society has conditioned itself to believe mainly in what it can see, experience and reproduce, and it is a very limiting proposition to frame reality in the context of orthodox naturalism.

Human perception is a wonderful servant but a horrible master. Scientifically speaking, normal limits exist regarding the physical senses such as hearing or sight, evidenced by a dog’s ability to perceive audio frequencies too high in pitch for a human to perceive. That is why those little whistles drive dogs absolutely crazy yet have no effect on humans. Just because we can’t hear those whistles doesn’t mean the frequencies they emit are not real. Just ask the dog! In similar fashion, the human retina is only able to perceive roughly five percent of the electromagnetic light spectrum. The rods and cones of the human eye are tuned to perceive energy only within the narrow range of 800nm to 400nm. Anything outside of this energy frequency goes undetected by the human eye. In other words, about ninety-five percent of the energy that surrounds us is visually imperceptible to us. Who is to say that spirits are not simply beings composed of higher or lower frequency energy that we cannot detect with our extremely short range of visual perception?

Exploring the religious or mystical side, the key words used to denote the spirit are ruach and neshemah in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek. Both words have strong connection to the ideas of ‘breath’ or ‘air.’ It is also interesting is that across the board, death is accompanied by a cessation of breath, and a cessation of breath is accompanied by death. We literally, "give up our breath" the moment we expire. Indeed a human being is a conglomeration of chemicals and elements that can be weighed and measured, but there is also an integral impetus that pushes these non-living chemicals into a progressive and life-unfolding organization. Like the proverbial Prometheus, we can cup this fire in our hands and dispense it in lesser increments. In the blink of an eye this deeper impetus halts its operation of the body, and upon that moment the same exact bundle of chemicals and elements that was just teeming with molecular dynamism begins an corollary process of entropic decay. The plight of all physical life in the current earthly sphere is disintegration into dust, which is in accord with Genesis 3:19.

An excellent deliberation of these concepts is afforded in the book Grand Illusions, author Little.





New Potrero Del Sol Skatepark Opens July 4th

*recently appeared in the Potrero View.

Correction: As of 6-20, the proposed opening of the park is June 28th. I apologize for any confusion. July 4th was the ‘official’ date given when I inquired in May.

 

San Francisco’s second public skateboard facility is set to open July 4th at Potrero Del Sol Park, located at 25th and Utah streets in the southeast outskirts of the City’s historic Mission District. The skatepark will be a much-needed relief to local skaters tired of dodging traffic, thugs and broken glass at the usual street spots, while local food, gas and convenience item retailers can expect at least modest revenue spurts, especially in summertime and on weekends.

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The Big Bang

May 14, 2008

By Big Bang, I mean simply the point of this universe's creation.

Cosmologists of previous centuries understandably supposed that the universe was static, timeless or self-sustaining, and these are all valid hypotheses considering the evidence of the times. Yet aside from the necessary requirement of being plausible against all current evidence, hypotheses must also stand the test of time and as new data pours in we must constantly reevaluate our theories.

Much like the stars in the heavenly array appear to be fixed in their respective order, a static universe would be a suspended one where planets and stars simply hung motionless in space. Some proposed a hypothetical repulsive force that could precisely counterbalance the effects of gravity, thus canceling out the universe’s expansion. Such a model explains how massive bodies that should normally attract minor bodies could remain static. From the vantage point of an observer on Earth there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of motion occurring in the cosmos, and this static universe theory met its first (and last) serious opposition around WWI when American astronomer Vesto Slipher and others observed that distant nebulae recede from Earth at very high velocities.

Electromagnetic energies such as light or infrared radiation travel in waves of differing frequencies, and by studying electromagnetic emissions from distant galaxies over time, scientists discovered that wavelengths from our remotest galactic neighbors are steadily elongating. These consistent fluctuations, called Doppler shifts, led to the conclusion that the universe was actually growing. This strongly suggests that the universe could not be static, but before the new evidence it seemed a stock observation to even the sharpest of analytical minds.

Building on Slipher’s observations, subsequent discoveries of Edwin Hubble in 1927 confirmed that our universe is indeed expanding as distant galaxies hurtle away from ours at rates exceeding thousands of miles per second. Over the thousands of years of human observation that took place before the advent of science, one could easily see why cultures around the world assumed the universe was eternal and had simply been here forever, but when combined with the evidence for an expanding universe, the fact that we can still see light from other galaxies strongly implies that the universe had a beginning in time. If the universe were both eternal and expanding, then stars, quasars and galaxies would have separated to remote distances long ago. Clearly the universe could not be both eternal and expanding, and the eventual conclusion was that all the matter in the universe was once at an ultra-dense, ultra-hot singularity that defies the laws the physics.

From a religious standpoint, there is nothing in scripture which contradicts the idea that all the matter in the universe was once at an ultra-dense, ultra-hot singularity that defies the laws the physics, and this, in hasty paraphrase, is the sequence of events that led to acceptance of the Big Bang.





Joe, Bill, Sam and Me

So I’ve been thinking a lot the past couple days about the effects of belief on behavior, and what I mean by this is people don’t usually react to things in a vacuum, but through the lens of their own belief.

 

To give you an example, I have two friends, whom I’ll call Joe and Bill. In the event of any disagreement, what transpires between Joe and Bill should have no bearing between either myself and Joe, or myself and Bill; unless, of course, there is some sort of genuine conspiracy or other ulterior motive involved, which, in this case I can assure you there is not. 

 

Joe and Bill, whom were decent buddies from high school to the early 30’s, had one of the most unfortunate experience friends can have, a landlord / tenant based falling-out, made worse by secondary elements of borrowed money that was repaid and an accusation of petty theft. The first I heard of the falling-out was just before Christmas of last year. Bill called while I was in a bookstore looking for a gift and told me about it. I demanded the abbreviated version as I couldn’t really respond much without pissing everyone else off, and besides, I had nothing to say. I just wanted the whole story, which I couldn’t get into any real detail about there. 

 

Well I never really got much more than that out of BIll. I saw Joe Christmas night. Joe has, for the past few years, had Christmas and/or Thanksgiving and/or any other random occasion with us. In fact my family is a big fan of both Joe and Bill, more so Joe as he’s been able to be around lately. Christmas night I didn’t ask Joe for his side of the story, or about any of the details. Nor did I let on to the fact that I’d talked to Bill and gotten Bill’s brief run-down of the story. I didn’t want to bring any negativity into the chillest of holiday vibes. 

 

I didn’t talk to Joe much if at all after Christmas. Maybe shot him a message on MySpace or left a voicemail message, but not an in-depth discussion involving the skateboard industry or whatever else the current scapegoat of the moment might be. That’s my fault, actually both of our fault. 

 

Recently, another friend, whom we’ll call Sam, suggested that I call Joe. Sensing something, I asked Sam, "Why? Does he think I have some grudge against him ‘cuz of Bill or something? Because if so that’s bullshit…" Sam wouldn’t really comment one way or the other, he just quietly reassured me that I should call Joe.

 

So I did. And I could tell from the outset of the phone call that in fact Joe did seem to think I had a grudge. Or at least an imbalanced alliance with Bill. But neither was true. Joe used words for me that day that I know Joe only reserves for the most soulless of Orange County socialites. I had no choice but to laugh. I explained to Joe up and down that Bill hadn’t divulged much. I asked Joe for his side of the story and he gave it to me at length. Now I can’t take sides with anyone, because I myself have no idea what really happened. But being made to feel like a wedge between two lifelong friends was definitely not the feeling I was looking for. 

 

The entire scenario illustrates perfectly how belief influences behavior. The whole time my friend Joe thought I was harboring a grudge with Bill against him, Joe himself was encouraging a grudge against me that I don’t think he was fully aware of. This belief of Joe’s influenced his behavior towards me, a lifelong friend.

 

So I guess the moral of the story is that if two of your good friends have a blowout, find out both sides of the story as soon as possible and establish your own neutrality with both of them, so they both know where you stand from the outset of their disagreement. The worst thing you can do is go silent with one or the other because even if your absence is inadvertent, as in this case, the silence can still mislead the person to think mistakenly that your disappearance from their life comes from taking sides. 

 

Whatever happened between Joe and Bill aside, both are my homies, as is Sam, and I’m confident one day maybe things can work out again.





False Argument #6: Impossible to Reconcile Flight to Egypt With Temple Presentation

In one of many arguments to establish the New Testament as unreliable historically, Mangasarian brings up what he feels to be a discrepancy between accounts of what took place during the time immediately after Jesus’ birth.

Matthew records that after Jesus was born, Magi from the east came to visit him and present gifts. Prior to finding Jesus, they approached Herod and asked if he knew where the newborn ‘king of the Jews’ was. (Matthew 2:2) Herod, disturbed, told the Magi to report back to him when they found the location of the newborn ‘king of the Jews,’ no doubt a political move. The Magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, while Mary and Joseph were warned in a dream to take Jesus and flee to Egypt. It is important to point out that the length of time the Magi stayed is not specified in Matthew’s account. Luke then records that after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph took him to the temple to be presented as was the Jewish custom of the time. Are the two in conflict, as Mangasarian claims?

Mangasarian writes, “It is impossible to reconcile the flight to Egypt with the presentation in the temple…Luke says nothing about this hurried flight. On the contrary, he tells us that after the 40 days of purification were over, Jesus was publicly presented at the temple, where Herod, if he really, as Matthew relates, wished to seize him, could have done so without difficulty.”

Luke indeed does write that after the 40 days of purification required by Jewish law were over Jesus was presented at the temple. So what exactly does Mangasarian contend? He is arguing that since Herod wanted to kill Jesus, there is no logical way in the world that Mary and Joseph would have presented Jesus in the temple, because Herod could have seized him. In theory it sounds logical. However, Mangasarian omits to mention Matthew 2:7,8 in which Herod originally told the Magi to report back to him to disclose the location of Jesus so he could worship him. However, the Magi never returned to Herod. It was not until two years later that Herod realized the Magi had ditched him. It was then that Herod “…gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” (Matthew 2:16) Why, otherwise, would the edict include the detail of two years? In other words, I’m contending that the three could’ve slipped in for purification right under Herod’s nose, while he was waiting for the Magi to return.

So, at the time Jesus was being presented at the temple, 40 days after his birth, Herod was still waiting for the Magi to return and tell him where Jesus was. Herod may or may not have been engaging in an active search for the baby Jesus, his edict had not been decreed. Mangasarian forms an irrational conclusion from a faulty premise. The faulty premise is that ‘it is impossible to reconcile the flight to Egypt with the presentation in the temple.’ This, as just demonstrated, is not true. At the time Jesus was presented in the temple, Herod was waiting for the Magi to return. It was not until two years after Jesus had been born that Herod gave his murderous orders.

So, the likely scenario is that Jesus was born and presented in the temple forty days later, and shortly thereafter, Mary and Joseph escaped to Egypt. Mangasarian’s faulty conclusion is that ‘this inconsistency is certainly insurmountable and makes it look as if the narrative had no value whatever as history.’

Mangasarian has made better arguments against the New Testament. The only inconsistency in this case Mangasarian’s inaccurate interpretation of scripture.





White Holes

May 13, 2008

At the risk of sounding like a completely arrogant putz, I still have to share this. Lately I’d been thinking a bit about cosmological matters and I independently arrived at the idea of white holes. I thought to myself it was just speculation and that I shouldn’t even pursue the matter. A week later I saw another one of those History Channel segments which often contain variant mixtures of scientific truth and fiction. At any rate, during a discussion on the hypothesis that black hole type forces are responsible for anomalous events occurring around the Bermuda Triangle, the writers noted Einstein actually included white holes in his work. Now what exactly any of this has to do with panspermia, abiogenesis, the origins of the universe or even history for that matter is an entirely different question, one that might be better directed towards the executive producers of the show, but the point is that I was unaware Einstein actually proposed such a thing in his treatises on black holes. The bad news is that’s no longer my independent idea, but then again I guess that’s not all that bad to have what you thought was your own idea confirmed by such a prestigious researcher, as opposed to say, a frontier science nut-job. The whole scenario got me thinking that we’re all capable of doing science, and that we should all trust our intelligent convictions to some extent. Maybe not everyone can do the research part of science, which requires tools, time and technical knowledge of course not everybody will have, but the hypothesizing and critical thinking aspects of science are natural human endeavors anyone can benefit from if they try.





False Argument #4: Bible Unsupported By Archaeology

May 12, 2008

If any of the people, places and events mentioned in the biblical record actually occurred, there should be archaeological findings and history to support them, and surely we might expect some mention of biblical events from extrabiblical sources. Many critics contend this is not what we find. This claim simply does not hold water. While of course not every person, place or event from any ancient manuscript could ever be recovered, legitimate discoveries affirm key players in the Hebrew scriptures.

Until about the middle of the twentieth century there was a general consensus that many of the events, places and people mentioned in the Bible didn’t ever exist. This attitude prompted claims of embellishment and other times outright fraud by biblical writers to justify their personal moral or theological inference from such events. It is difficult for some people to accept the stories of King David or Herod the Tetrarch without some sort of extra-biblical validation of their existence, just as the story of creation in Genesis loses credibility if it can be found in bona fide conflict with a bona fide fact of modern science.

Regarding the possibility to prove the historicity of certain people or places mentioned only in the Bible, scientific evidence, again, is a wonderful servant but a horrible master. Extreme refusal to believe something purely on a lack of scientific evidence can cause bias. It must also be noted that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. Although archaeology of today has never unearthed ‘city x,’ that does not negate the possibility that ‘city x’ once existed, and archaeologists may in fact discover remnants of ‘city x’ at any future point.

In 1993 Israeli archaeologists unearthed fragments of a stele, or ancient monument, bearing the inscriptions in Aramic ‘King of Israel’ and ‘House of David.’ The find was a blow to scholars who previously discredited the historical existence of King David based on a lack of extra-biblical evidence. At Tel Miqne-Ekron, an excavation team found a stone tablet with a Phoenician inscription bearing the name of the city ‘Ekron,’ the legendary deposit city of the Ark of the Covenant, captured by the Philistines according to the first book of Samuel. In the summer of 1996, archaeologists sifting through a 2,000 year-old garbage site at Masada in Southern Israel found the first extra-biblical mention of King Herod. It was a wine jug bearing an inscription of the great Judean King mentioned in the gospels.

References of Israel are found in Egyptian epigraphy, for example the Stela of Merneptah, discovered at Thebes by Sir Flinders Petrie. Written in hieroglyphics, the writing records the boasting of an early thirteenth-century b.c. Egyptian ruler, Merneptah, that he had ‘humbled Israel.’ The omission of the customary determinative sign of ‘land,’ supports the idea of a nomadic tribe without a homeland, corroborating the account found in the book of Exodus.

Opposite Aswan is an island in the Nile known as Elephantine in Greek or Yeb in Aramic. It was there that a series of ancient Jewish manuscripts were discovered in 1903, which came to be known as the Elephantine Papyri. These letters revealed the presence of Jewish colonists and their families in the fifth century b.c. Among them were requests to Johanan and Sanballat to build a temple; the names of these priests also appear in Nehemiah 12:22 and 2:19.

Archaeologist Amnon Ben-Tor unearthed evidence that seems to confirm the biblical accounts of Joshua plundering the Canaanite city of Hazor and destroying it by fire. Citing fire-blackened stones, Ben-Tor confirms the biblical account of Hazor being destroyed by a terrible fire and having its Canaanite and Egyptian statues destroyed. Discoveries at Hazor also show the city was occupied again by the tenth century b.c., supporting biblical mention of King Solomon’s reign in the area.

A Lutheran minister named Klein discovered the Moabite Stone at Dibon in present day Jordan. The stone is extra-biblical confirmation of the defeat of King Omri of Israel (885-874b.c.) by Mesha. It was also the only extra-biblical mentioning of the name Yahweh until the Lachish Letters of 1932.

As supported by this quick handful of discoveries, the Bible contains a sound historical core. Note this is not equivalent to the emotionally-based, rhetorical blanket statement, “Archaeology and history proves the Bible!”

Also note the absurdity in the claim of opposite polarity, that archaeology and history fail to properly support scripture or locate events of the Bible in history or time.





Luke’s Letter To Theophilus

May 11, 2008

Questions of absolute historicity cast temporarily aside, Luke was probably somewhat of a thinking man, an analytical person who operated on known and demonstrable fact rather than whimsical allegory.

The opening of his gospel, which was written to a man named Theophilus and quite possibly never intended for general reading, records, “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us…Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:1-4)

There is much to infer from these verses. Generally, Luke speaks as an articulate, educated person. He is very calculating and precise. There is much less heated emotion in his recording of things than, say, John’s. In matters of factual reporting, Luke’s writing is strong. I get the impression from Luke’s writing that he was somewhat reserved or skeptical and that he weighed and measured everything that transpired during those years with the utmost consideration. William Mitchell Ramsay, (1851-1939) noted archaeologist of Asia Minor, wrote that, “Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness,” and Luke himself said he had, “carefully investigated everything from the beginning.” Of course that doesn’t make Luke’s claims about Jesus automatically true or absolutely historically accurate, but it certainly inspires one to wonder why such a calculated account would reference something as intellectually contradictory as resurrection, unless it either actually happened or there was some motive in the pretense of it actually happening.

Also of interest was the personal nature of his presentation. It was apparently intended for a man named Theophilus, and the prefix, “most excellent” implies this person was either a close friend of Luke’s or somebody Luke held in high regards for whatever reason. I infer that Luke did not write his account of things for a general audience. This is just my inference; in no way do I present it as historically valid. Whether Luke intended to write for a mass audience or not, this particular piece was intended for a friend or superior of his. A third observation is the closing statement, which is seemingly revelatory of Luke’s intent. He says, “…so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” This implies a desire for the preservation of historical fact and overall truth. There is concern for truth in that statement. Again, if Luke or later copyists were lying, then this statement was born of a complex, calculated desire to deceive.

Who would he want to deceive about Christ? And why? It got him and his friends ridiculed and killed. What if Christianity was one big lie? First of all, socially and culturally speaking, lies are usually constructed to advance an agenda. What type of agenda could the early Christians be charged with having? There were definitely zero benefits to being a Christian in Roman-ruled Judea during the first century.





False Argument #3: Appendix Doesn’t Seem To Serve A Function

While reading a high school biology textbook written by two highly reputable science authors, I couldn’t help but feel resentment when I came across the following statement: “The appendix is a vestigial organ that does not seem to serve a function in digestion today.”

The statement is misleading. Now it’s not as much the first half of this statement I wish to contest as the last, although I have a few non-traditional opinions about the first half as well. The official position on vestigial organs here is that we don’t claim them any more favorable to the atheist, evolutionary worldview than the faith-based, creationist worldview, and that all participants in the debate need to understand clearly what constitutes a vestigial structure. The point of this post and why I think it belongs on the site is that even accomplished biology textbook writers holding Ph.D degrees and better occasionally succumb to confirmation bias and perpetuate errors and misconceptions concerning the human body. With the textbook editors I will be less forgiving, first for not catching the error in the editing process, and second for not explaining anything else about the matter of vestigial organs at all. For example, what concrete point of reference do we have upon which we might reason the current state of affairs in the appendix is reduced or in any way rudimentary? Can we say with surety that the appendix did more for Homo sapiens 50,000 years ago or at any other point in time? Or is our conclusion reached on account of more functioning appendices in other species?

The English vestigial derives from the Latin vestigium, meaning among other things an imprint or trace. Definitions of vestigial organs vary from source to source. My personal, off-the-cuff definition as I write this today is "the remnant of a superior, fully functional organ thought to have once existed in an ancient ancestor, based on the theory of linear descent from a LUCA. Generally characterized by reduced function, it is important to note that not all vestigial organs are claimed to be useless and there is nothing about the term that demands non-utility. German Anatomist R. Wiedersheim in 1893 included approximately 85 structures in his original list of vestiges, and it was later said that man possessed nearly 200 vestigial organs including the appendix, coccyx, pineal gland, the tonsils and the pituitary gland. Of course as science and understanding of human anatomy have progressed, the number of vestigial organs has dwindled, and there is of course ongoing debate about the subject. Medical professionals have demonstrated bona fide functions of many organs classified as vestigial, supported among other documented evidences by the observation of drastic changes in patient physiology noted upon removal of the organ in question. For example, the extensive work of the Calderoli brothers details this occurrence in tonsillectomy patients.

More accurately described as a gland than an organ, the modest vermiform appendix sits in a crucially important location, located just below the ileo-cecal valve at the beginning of the colon or large intestine. Other animals have larger appendices such as the Koala bear and we know rather specifically what some of the functions of the appendix are. Among other things it has an active relationship with the hypothalamus gland, and one function of the hypothalamus is to regulate body responses in a manner conducive to its protection. With an average length around three inches, this tube-like cluster of lymph and glands is responsible for secreting a germicidal fluid that is automatically injected into the colon in the event that waste matter coming from the small intestine is determined to be toxic for the individual.

Poor eating habits add to the burden of our faculties and when maintained over a significant duration of time, the appendix will eventually tire from overexertion. Appendicitis is a typical result descriptive of a worn and inflamed appendix. Too much toxic waste for too long causes the appendix to work overtime and once the limit of inflammation has been reached, the poor gut has no choice but to burst, causing considerable pain and privation to the sufferer. Among other things your appendix is a built-in detector and neutralizer of certain toxicities and poison, a seemingly fitting feature congruent with many other self-maintenance mechanisms our bodies possess.

Especially in the context of the argument, Miller and Levine’s statement that the appendix "does not seem to serve a function in digestion today" is an inaccurate and misleading claim, one that nutritionists and health experts have been known to take issue with. As stated the claim does not belong in a high-school textbook, especially in the absence of further information about the appendix or the phenomenon of vestigial organs in general, and the claim is of the caliber one might expect from an irresponsible tabloid newspaper, cheap YEC tract or the machinations of science-fiction. In fact, thinking back I do recall that Isaac Asimov makes this very same claim in his Words of Science: "The appendix is thus the useless remainder of a once useful organ…"

Now I normally don’t have too much of a problem with assumptions provided they are supported by sound logic, observation or scientific principle. However, when an assumption is not only unfounded and unscientific but also demonstrably wrong, I do have a problem, and when such assumptions are pawned off onto unsuspecting school kids in the name of science, whether in defense of creationism or evolution in my such tactics are certainly reprehensible. The error of calling the appendix an organ as opposed to a gland is really just a technicality and is, of course, both arguable and forgivable. However, the error of claiming the appendix "does not seem to serve a function in digestion today" reveals ignorance regarding nutrition and anatomy.

Another enigma is why those militant about the quality of science education in this country don’t seem to apply the same level of stringency when an error is unrelated to creationism. What’s further interesting is the special pleading of individuals who embrace vestigial organs as suggestive of Darwinism while harshly criticizing those who embrace life’s complexity as being suggestive of intelligent design, when both conclusions are in fact arrived at via identical means. Isn’t declaring an organ vestigial on account of the fact we haven’t identified its function yet the very same error ID gets charged with for declaring the universe a product of intelligent design because we haven’t discerned a natural cause for it yet?

However it arose, the appendix is a useful feature of human physiology.

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