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Young Earth Creationism, Degeneration, and Bible Giants: 1950's Style

11/25/2015

3 Comments

 
Modern beliefs about the existence of giants in the past are multi-faceted.  As I touched on in the section introducing topics on The Argumentative Archaeologist site, I think there are three main threads: the "corrupt seed" giants (aka Nephilim); the "lost race" of giants (frequently associated with a resurgence of the Mound Builder Myth); and the "Bible giants" of Young Earth Creationism. There is some overlap in these threads, especially with what constitutes evidence.
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've been trying to understand the history, development, and modern configuration of what I call the "degeneration doctrine" (the idea that the human career has been marked by "degeneration" from the bigger, better, smarter original state of creation).  Presidential candidate Ben Carson espouses the idea, as does Kent Hovind. I've found the idea all over the mid-19th century writings of Seventh-Day Adventist prophet Ellen G. White and in Bible dictionaries from the early 1800s.

As I was constructing The Argumentative Archaeologist, I came across a lot of interesting material relevant to Young Earth Creationist (YEC) claims about giants (there is a special fascination with supposed fossil footprints), and I became aware of a 1950 article by Clifford L. Burdick titled "When Giants Roamed the Earth."  The article,* in the Seventh-Day Adventist publication Signs of the Times (Volume 77, Number 28, pp. 8-9), clearly lays out the degeneracy doctrine as it is related to giant humans:

    "No wonder Methuselah lived so long. The rich soil was watered by gentle mists, that did not cut ravines and gullies and wash the forming soil into the ocean.
    With a withering earth we see a withering humanity. Not only has man decreased in stature from a magnificent specimen ten or twelve feet tall, to an average today of less than six feet, but his average life has shortened from many centuries to little more than half a century. Where do we find any human evolution here?"


The physical evidence that Burdick offers for giants includes several purported giant human footprints (some of which, I believe, I already have entries for under "Anomalous Footprints" although the names may differ - I'll do some cross-checking later).  The footprints of "giants" (some of which have been shown to be fabrications) are continue to be displayed in the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas.

The last section of Burdick's article is worth reproducing, as it nicely ties together many of the elements that are still a part of YEC arguments about giants:

    "The conclusions from these remarkable discoveries are crystal clear, but have far-reaching repercussions:
    1. Degeneration, not evolution has been the fate of the human race.
    2. Finding human tracks and dinosaur tracks in the same formation prove them contemporaneous, rather than separated by from 6o,000,000 to 120,000,000 years, thus collapsing the geological age theory.
    3. Evolution has always leaned on the geological age theory for its main support; therefore with the collapse of the geological age theory, the generalization of organic evolution also collapses." 


My investigation into the degeneracy doctrine and Bible giants in Industrial America is revealing a strong connection to the Seventh-Day Adventist church: I do not think it is coincidental that Ellen G. White was a Seventh-Day Adventist, Burdick's article appeared in a Seventh-Day Adventist publication, and Ben Carson was raised as a Seventh-Day Adventist.  I haven't yet looked at if/how the degeneracy doctrine appears in other indigenous American religious movements, but I will not be surprised if it turns out to be rather limited outside of the Seventh-Day Adventist church and related movements. That's interesting.


*I owe a special thanks to Irna Osmanovic (Le Site d'Irna) for finding a copy of the Burdick article online for me.  Thanks Irna!
3 Comments
Don Spohn
11/25/2015 03:37:44 pm

Andy, I don’t know much about the Seventh Day Adventist Church or the young earth theory. And you know a whole lot more than I do about giant theories. I understand the theory of evolution sees mankind as ever improving, whereas you quote the degeneracy doctrine probably as believing mankind was once more perfect and is in decline.
Not being a student of these topics, but having respect for science, I suspect science would see the doctrine of decline as more scientific than the theory of evolution. I base this on science’s second law of thermodynamics: The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the universal law of decay; all physical thing, including the universe, itself, ultimately falls apart, disintegrates over time.

Reply
Andy White
11/26/2015 04:24:24 am

Hi Don.

The idea that "the theory of evolution sees mankind as ever improving" is a common misconception. Our modern understanding is that evolution isn't linked to "progress" or "improvement," but merely to changes in gene frequencies brought about by one or more of just a few mechanisms (mutation, migration, drift, and natural selection). Evolutionary change specifies no direction. Nineteenth century ideas often (wrongly) characterized evolutionary change as "progress" (and often linked the social and biological in ways that produced and helped maintain a lot of human ugliness - slavery, eugenics, European colonialism, Nazism, etc.).

The Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't really apply to complex adaptive systems that have top-down and bottom-up feedbacks. Those kinds of systems - like ecological systems and human social systems - tend toward greater complexity over time. We can see many examples in the history of the Earth of things getting more complex (rather than simpler) over time. Those examples don't "violate" the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which was formulated to describe the behavior of gasses in closed system. Complex systems like ecosystems don't behave like gasses, and are not closed (the sun is constantly pouring more energy into them).

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Chris L Lesley link
12/5/2018 03:15:02 pm

Evolution's supernaturalistic view of "nature" is propped up by three theological supports. Exaggerated Time, Chance beyond mathematics, and unspecified Energy are staples of evolutionary theory. I use the formula "NatureETC". Energy, Time, and Chance completes supernaturalism from bottom-up. This talk about Energy gives me the opportunity to say that times arrow moves in one direction, and the decay principle is called ENTROPY. As a Creationist and scientist: we recognize the decay principle as the most universal law of science, it is tested and retested and there has never been any deviation outside of some preprogrammed genetic coding.
I have read numerous books on the subject outside the regular Creationist readers. One of these was a scholarly book named "ENTROPE". There was a small line in this book that stated that ENTROPY doesn't allow the possibility for evolution, and this is equal to being hit between the eyes with a sledgehammer, philosophically but there is no other conclusion.

Every good scientist asks what is present and what is not present. The first question should be what energy does the Sun produce? Because the second law of thermodynamics works on the specific types of energy available. For the most part the Sun produces mostly heat and light, as for the other forms in both the visible and invisible spectrum, all forms can be reproduced or replicated here on Earth. So if the specified energy is there, it is an open system, if the energy that is needed for the task is not present, then it is closed. For someone that wants to argue that the Earth is a closed system because of the Sun, please enlighten me on the specific type of energy.

What is not there is any form of Energy that will cause syntropy / evolution. I equate the unspecificity in this pseudo-scientific view of thermodynymic law by evolutionists to a form of "Sun worship".

Evolutionary process goes from non life to life, from fish to philosopher. from the goo, through the zoo, to you, . . . so the idea that evolutionism doesn't promote "improvement" is willful blindness. Any extrapolation backwards of phylagenetic trees, or defense of Cope's Law/Rule amounts to obvious deception in its denial.

I contend that the strict adhering to ENTROPY by creationist is fundemental science, and syntropy is the opposite. (unobservable deviant and lacking foundation)

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