The great debate: an excerpt from prayer news

There has been a huge response to the Great Genesis Debate (available on both CD and DVD) between AiG’s Dr Carl Wieland and Dr Paul Willis, paleontologist, atheist, former winner of the Skeptic of the Year award and prominent ABC science journalist who had been ‘itching’ to publicly debate AiG. We are generally hesitant to engage in such debates for a number of reasons, including that rhetorical cleverness is not the test of truth (applies both ways) [Adam: but it works so well on the converted...] However, reluctant to let down the church that had already accepted Willis’s participation, we agreed this time. Feedback tells us that very few were convinced by Willis’s confident performance. For instance, Mark B. wrote the following (which may explain why, unlike us, the Skeptics do not seem to be promoting the DVD/CD):

‘Dear staff/team at AIG:
I just wanted to say how much I appreciated the [recording of] “The Great Debate” of 24 August 2003. If Paul Willis represents the best “ammunition” evolutionary atheists can throw at AIG, then the Skeptic Society is in serious trouble indeed! There can be no doubt that Paul Willis was comprehensively thrashed in the debate by our own Carl Wieland. Carl demolished every argument this so-called champion of evolution could throw at him.

‘To be frank—Willis's performance was farcical; e.g. his citation of the Coconino Sandstone formation and the “fossilized forests” at Joggins, Nova Scotia as “proof” of an old earth. I was particularly impressed that Carl demolished the above two examples of Willis, since Willis has a doctorate in paleontology and one would expect that he would have made his strongest points around geological/fossil evidence. And yet, by EVOLUTIONISTS' own admissions, the Coconino Sandstone formation is "yesterday's geology", and the Joggins forest example is precisely what we find in the Mount Saint Helens/Spirit Lake region (I am sure that evolutionists would love to date the geological data in the Mount Saint Helens/Spirit Lake region to 'millions of years', but I guess that even they are forced to accept that since this event was observed in 1980, it is not millions of years old).

‘Overall, Willis simply did not even TRY to rebut most of Carl's points (I am sure much to the embarrassment of his fellow Skeptics in the audience); let alone refute them. On the other hand, Carl easily refuted most of Willis's points (and the ones he didn't refute were due to the sheer limited time factor).

‘ … Willis claimed that the audience "had not heard one piece of evidence for a literal Genesis creation” … Carl pointed out, in reference to the helium in zircons (if significant amounts of helium are still in “ancient” granite zircons, then these crystals (and since this is Precambrian basement granite, by implication the whole earth) could not be older than between 4,000 and 14,000 years), if that is not evidence for a recent creation then I don't know what is!

‘I would be most interested to know how the Skeptics reported on the outcome of this debate … they were humiliated by Carl and I personally doubt they will be coming back for another shot (at least in a public forum where both sides have the opportunity to present their cases) at AIG for a long time.

Congratulations to Carl and all the staff at AIG for putting the Skeptics firmly in their place!’