Title: Creationism again
Hi,
I have
heard about this paper but only now I could get a glimpse of at least the
abstract through the link you provided. Below, I paste an essential part of this
(long!) abstract:
On this basis, it is proposed that the
unusual local freezing process might have provided an origin to the story that
Christ walked on water. Since the springs ice is relatively small, a person
standing or walking on it may appear to an observer situated some distance away
to be 'walking on water'. This is particularly true if it rained after the ice
was formed (because rain smoothes out the ice's surface). Whether this happened
or not is an issue for religion scholars, archeologists, anthropologists, and
believers to decide on. As natural scientists, we merely point out that unique
freezing processes probably happened in that region several times during the
last 12,000 years.
From
this follows that the authors did not intend in anyway to convince us that Jesus
existed, or that the story of walking on water is true (if he walked on ice, the
story is even untrue - decide for yourself what you think of this). This even
implies they believe this is a legend, that might be based on superstitious
reports of people walking on ice, while they believed it was water. Seems like
pure science to me - the fact that they linked this to a particular Bible story
is rather interesting, even if atypical for these fields of science. In other
words, this has much more to do with real palaeontology than you
thought!
Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk
[mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk]On Behalf Of Michael
Rasser
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 1:59 PM
To:
paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: paleonet Creationism
again
Dear colleagues!
The "Journal of Paleolimnology" published an
article discussing that Jesus did not walk on the water - instead, he was
walking on ice. It was published in volume 35/no. 3, p. 417. Springerlink:
http://springerlink.metapress.com/link.asp?id=g0565g4u74758076
Can anybody tell me, how this could happen?
How can an editor accept this in times of increased
pressure by creationists and intelligent design?
Confused and annoyed,
Michael Rasser
__________________________
Dr.
habil. Michael W. Rasser
Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde
Rosenstein 1, D-70191 Stuttgart,
Germany
Tel.: +49-(0)711/8936-143
Fax: +49-(0)711/8936-100
Mobil:
+49-(0)162/6521819
Email:
rasser.smns@naturkundemuseum-bw.de
Museum: www.naturkundemuseum-bw.de/stuttgart
http://www.saurier2007.de
Michael: www.paleoweb.net/rasser