Micheal Cranford
----------------

  Corey Carroll states:

  Recently I went to the Dallas public library and got some books
  on Evolution that the JW's _Life_ book quotes from.  I just got
  a chance to look at _Evolution From Space_, by Fred Hoyle, and
  Chandra Wickramasinghe.
  [ ... ]
  They seem to propose that life could NOT have originated by "chance",
  and that it might have come here from outer space on asteroids or
  something, with life's biochemical problems already solved.  This
  seems to just make the question regarding the origin of life harder
  to answer, and it is not really an answer.  They concluede [sic] their
  book talking about some form of 'Higeher [sic] intelligence" and they say
  they don't believe in God, but in something as an intelligent director
  of the origin of life.
  [ ... ]


  Neither Fred Hoyle nor Chandra Wickramasinghe has a clue about biology
(their acknowledged fields are astronomy and mathematics respectively).
Note that the origin of life on earth is completely separate from the
evolution of life (the latter obviously presupposes life exists but does
not even try to say anything about how life started).

  Fred Hoyle created a recent flap by claiming that archaeopteryx was a
forgery (his claim has since been shown to be false and based on an abysmal
ignorance about fossils).  Creationists actually flew Chandra Wickramasinghe
to the 1982 "Balanced Treatment of Creation-Science [sic] and Evolution-Science
Act" trial held in Little Rock Arkansas (as their star witness!). [1,2,3]
Unfortunately, their moronic scheme back-fired in a very large and humorous
way.  When cross-examined about the young earth creationist notion that the
universe was 10,000 years old, his reply was "one would have to be crazy to
believe that".  Could any rational scientist believe that the earth's geology
can be explained by a single catastrophe?  "No".  Could any rational scientist
believe that the earth less than one million years old?  "No".

Wickramasinghe's firm understanding of biology was brought forth by asking
him to read a passage from _Evolution From Space_ which claimed that insects
are in fact smarter than humans but are being very careful to not let on.
These statements ended up completely undermining the case of the team who
paid his air fare.  Judge Overton expressed confusion as to why the defense
recruited Wickramasinghe; he ended up assuming that it must have been
because Wickramasinghe was critical of both evolution and the
scientific community.

In summary, the JW's _Life_ book quoting _Evolution From Space_ is merely
another case of (young earth) creationists quoting (ancient earth)
creationists with neither group knowing what they are talking about.

REFERENCES

  [1] Creationism in Schools
		The Decision in McLean verses the Arkansas Board of Education.
		  Science, February 19, 1982, volume 215, pp. 934-943.

  [2] Crusade of the Credulous
		California Academy of Sciences Press, 1986.

  [3] Repealing the Enlightenment, about the 1982 Arkansas equal-time trial.
		Harpers, April 1982, pp. 38-78.