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Volume 1, Issue 8
| October 2, 2011 |
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The Charges Against NAMI's Discovery!
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"The greater the evidence, the greater will be the claims against it."
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Greetings,
Aside from a brief note in my first newsletter, I have made no mention of the charges against NAMI's discovery. In one of last week's screenings, I was asked to review these objections. It may help explain what many of you are wondering: why the videos and photographs of this amazing discovery have not already turned the world upside down.
One reason is because an accusation quickly eclipsed NAMI's April, 2010 announcement. As first reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Liberty University's Dr. Randall Price who "was the archaeologist on the Chinese-led team when this discovery was made ... has reason to believe that a group of local Kurdish men trucked wood up to the mountain and staged an elaborate hoax for the Chinese team. A group of Kurdish workers are said to have planted large wood beams taken from an old structure in the Black Sea area.'" The report left the impression that
an evangelical scientist put aside his will-t0-believe as he resisted being taken in by a Kurdish stunt that fooled gullible Chinese Christians. It was cruel slander against some of the most wonderful, professional, humble, intelligent, and innocent Christians that you will ever meet.
The media seemed not to notice that Price was uncertain of his rumor as he expressed implicit openness to NAMI's claim by raising the bar of proof. He wanted to believe, but "the greater the claim, the greater the evidence needs to be to support it." Presumably the televangelist theologian did not know that he was quoting David Hume's argument against biblical miracles! The above subtitle is my corollary to the great skeptic's dictum as pertaining to evidence for miracles.
The media also ignored the fact that the accuser is raising funds for a rival Ark exploration and bases his charges on anonymous sources! Likely, they are unaware of his vigorous attempts to prevent NAMI's appearance before audiences in the United States. Though he hints to his supporters that he has himself discovered the Ark(!), his activities have focussed on attempts to locate NAMI's site and demonstrate the feasibility of fabrication. In an interview with CBN, he claimed that his very life is threatened by our dear friend, Parasut.
I pointed out these ethical issues to CBN and to the university and seminary where Price serves as adjunct professor. CBN took immediate action by removing the interview from their website, the most admirable action by the media in all the reporting on this discovery. Price responded to pressure to reveal his anonymous sources by placing a letter from two brothers, Davut and Ergan, who claim to have helped Parasut fabricate his Ark site. This "affidavit" failed to give last names, addresses, or associations of the brothers.
Price must have been shocked when an angry Davut and Ergan Gimrin appeared in a Skype interview on NAMI's website, showing their Turkish identification cards and signatures, attesting their loyalty to Parasut, comparing them to the signatures in Price's letter. The professor immediately removed the forged letter from his website, leaving a note that he was investigating the letter's source. The note has since disappeared from his website.
Price continues to harass those hosting NAMI's appearances in the US. His message is that they are participating in a scheme to extract money from gullible audiences and are risking their reputations in doing so. Just prior to the recent screening, I received an email accusing those of us who have hosted NAMI of fraudulent activities. It came from the owner of the travel agency associated with Price's campsite in Turkey, and immediately followed his recent excursion there. A video posted with this threat contained an email hacked from Parasut's account. That is fraudulent activity.
NAMI has not reported these events to the media, preferring to focus on their documentaries and continuing scientific investigations, of far more interest. Since responding to my initial objections, Price's university has also been silent. One reason may be concerns that disciplinary actions may be seen as acknowledging liability for their professor's actions. As I recently learned from NAMI, that need not be their concern.
What NAMI desires is an opportunity to present their findings to American audiences free from the harassment that has beset their recent appearances. Scientific criticisms of their discovery are welcome, but the evidence must first be presented. As portrayed in Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, many excellent scientists in the Creationist community complain of being shut out from scientific discussion in academia. Remaining silent about this treatment of NAMI must give these complaints a hollow sound.
Regards to all,
Philip Williams
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Evangelical scholarship
Excellence, not credentialism, is the path to respect.
Recently, the head of the religious department at a state university mentioned to me that he can spot evangelicals by their use of academic titles. In no place is this more true than in Creationist circles where titles and publications of little relevance are often substituted for work of substance and excellence.
This will not win the respect of those from whom we should wish to obtain it. The source and relevance of one's credentials, the quality, integrity, and significance of accomplishments are more to the point than formal credentials.
The claim of Price's supporters is that no scientists have been involved with NAMI's discovery. This is not the case, but sadly the record of Price's type of Ark searching has hindered scientific investigation and funding. If we must exclude discoveries not made by formally-credentialed archaeologists, we exclude most great discoveries, including the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The type of science and scholarship that I discuss in this newsletter, explains why I chose to barely mention searches for Noah's Ark in the Archaeological Evidence (until I heard of NAMI's discovery).
It is true that evangelicals have no monopoly on this type of science. Entertainment, fashions, careerism, political correctness, and business interests are taking over the world of science. Notwithstanding the modernist conceit that we live in an age of enlightenment, in fact our world has entered a new age of darkness. We have to fight that darkness, but the best way to do that is to turn on a light.
NAMI's discovery will not just uncover the problems in evangelical scholarship, it will also expose the pretensions of science to address the issues of our world's origins. The massive and safely frozen artifact that NAMI has discovered is not going away. It will outlast irresponsible reactions to their announcement. As with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the foremost scientific institutions will compete to be part of its study. Those opposing these claims will then be answering questions about credentials, integrity, and scientific judgment.
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Price, the archaeologist
His team of scientific experts dispute NAMI's discovery, but they have found Noah's Ark!
He judges the pottery in NAMI's discovery not to be from the era of the Flood because it is wheel made. According to the Bible, Adam and Eve's descendants could make musical instruments and work with bronze and iron. Someone from the same era built the finest Pyramids, but Price claims they could not use a potter's wheel.
His other contribution to NAMI's discovery was his scientific experts, geologist Dr. Don Patton and anthropologist Dr. Don Shockey. Both are famous for the discovery or promotion of human footprints under dinosaur tracks along the banks of Texas' Paluxy River. That turns paleontology upside down, but they seem unable to convince prominent Young Earth Creationists ever how much the latter would love to believe them.
Drs. Price and Patton are upset that NAMI rejected their report on NAMI's wood sample in favor of geological tests made by the University of Hong Kong. NAMI ended their short association with this team when Price insulted the natives who led NAMI to their discovery. Dialogue and trust of the natives should have been the goal of Price's anthropologist, but his contribution was satellite data that led to their own discovery of the location of the Ark!
Dr. Price now seems to be distancing himself from his colleagues, removing their joint report from his website. That is regrettable. About this subject, they are more knowledgable and interesting than Dr. Price. |
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Price's geologist
A charred balsam board is not heavy, not brown, and not beneath tons of rock and ice.
Dr. Don Patton co-authored with Randall Price the Fall 2010 Special Report of Randall Price's newsletter pertaining to NAMI's discovery, in which the above photographs appear. The authors claim that the board that Patton is holding was found at the site of NAMI's discovery. Patton explains that he cannot show what we view on NAMI's video due to the fact that it has been destroyed by the moving glacier. As we witnessed in the documentary, the site is not a glacier, nor in any danger of being destroyed by glacier movement. We witnessed the site visited by Panda, one year later, the chief difference being a bit more covering of ice. Moreover, Patton's board is not heavy, not brown, and not beneath thousands of tons of ice and volcanic rock. Nor is it partially rotted. NAMI's site cannot have been fabricated.
A good deal of their report aimed at showing how timber could be hauled to NAMI's site above 14,000'. They showed Green Peace's Ark site without mentioning its pleasant 8,200' elevation. It is understandable why Patton chose a light, short plank to carry to the place where the authors believe to be NAMI's site. It is not in fact NAMI's site, as we could easily tell from the documentary. Neither is the site featured by Dr. Amy Beam's taunting video circulating on the Internet. Seeing these efforts to discover NAMI's irreplaceable discovery, it would be one of the greatest archaeological misfortunes of all time should the site actually be discovered.
Some of their 33-page report actually addressed the evidence provided by NAMI without doctoring NAMI's photographs: spider webs, straw, and pottery. Why these "troubling" details except that it is just what Parasut and NAMI have found. How did the spider webs and straws get to these heights? The cobwebs may have come from those spiders we saw crawling on the explorers sleeping bags. The straw might have been carried there as the bedding of some ancient pilgrim. These are deserving of study.
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NAMI's Ark documentary
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 (Documentary)
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About Us
Christian Leaders & Scholars is the newsletter and publication site of Philip Ernest Williams, author of The Archaeological Evidence of Noah's Flood (2011). The site is also a ministry not only to Christian leaders and scholars but all who are interested in the more difficult issues pertaining to the Bible and its implications for science and history. (Read more) |
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