Preliminary reports suggest he may have died. Apparently he attempted the ascent of Mt Ararat by himself in order to locate the site of Noah’s Ark supposedly found by a Chinese team.

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Missing: The Scot searching for Noah’s Ark
by Chris Watt
The Herald (Scotland), p. 1.
November 9, 2010

Donald Mackenzie, from Stornoway on Lewis, was last in touch with his family on September 30 after embarking on the expedition on Mount Ararat. Mr Mackenzie has dedicated much of his life to looking for the remains of the ark, near Turkey’s eastern borders with Iran and Armenia.

His mother, renowned Gaelic singer Maggie Jean, spoke of her fears that he could be lying injured or dying on the mountain.

“This is just an awful nightmare. I am praying he has managed to keep himself alive. I just want him back home safe,” she said.

The family’s MSP, Alasdair Allan, has written to Foreign Secretary William Hague, and Interpol and local police have been involved. Authorities are planning to circulate a photo of Mr Mackenzie around eastern Turkey. A Scottish man on a quest to find the remains of Noah’s Ark has vanished on Mount Ararat, his family said yesterday.

Donald Mackenzie, from Stornoway, was reported missing after he failed to report back from an expedition launched several weeks ago in the Turkish wilderness.

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The influence of one of the founders of geology continues to reverberate even into the 21st century.  Amazing. 

For additional information see the Biography of James Hutton from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, 1910-1911, at the Missouri Association for Creation website.

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New centre to honour ‘father of geology’
by Andrew Arbuckle
The Scotsman (Scotland), p. 12.
November 10, 2010

The new “super research institute” which is being formed from the Scottish Crop Research Institute at Invergowrie and Aberdeen’s Macaulay Land Use Research Institute is to be named the James Hutton Institute in honour of the Scottish enlightenment science pioneer.

James Hutton, who lived from 1726 to 1797, was a leading figure of the Scottish enlightenment, an 18th century golden age of intellectual and scientific achievements centred on Edinburgh. his counterparts included Adam Smith, the economist, and David Hume, the philosopher and historian.

Hutton is internationally regarded as the father of modern geology and one of the first scientists to describe the earth as a living system; his thinking on natural selection influenced Charles Darwin in developing his theory of evolution.
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Kudos to Ian Juby for the nice article and photo in the Canadian Newfoundland newspaper, Compass. 

Also in the same issue of the newspaper was a letter from a reader critical of Ian’s lecture at a local church. Oddly enough (perhaps not!) is that the letter was much longer than is typical found in a newspaper. In fact, it took up 3 columns with no other letters printed that issue.

I suppose the editorial page editor couldn’t allow a rather favorable write-up of the talk and Juby’s ministry to go unchallenged!

More information about Ian and his activities can be found at his website, The Creation Ministries of Ian Juby.

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Questioning evolution
by Andrew Robinson
The Compass (Canada), p. B3
November 9, 2010

In the world of academia, evolutionary biology is accepted as an important scientific field. From grade school in public institutions to graduate studies at the most prestigious universities and colleges in the world, the subject, which focuses on changes in inherited traits through different generations of species over time, is a widely studied topic.

Within pockets of the evangelical Christian community, however, there are concerns about evolution supporting the existence of Earth for millions and millions of years. At the Calvary Pentecostal Church in Carbonear on Tuesday, Oct. 26, one of those doubters was on hand to present an alternative view of the world’s past.

Ian Juby calls himself a creation science speaker who has been conducting research to support creationism for over 15 years. Creationism is the belief Earth and all that inhabits it is the creation of a supernatural being. Creation science aims to collect evidence supporting the Genesis narrative, which says the Earth was created in seven days.

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Creationism short on facts, says writer
The Compass (Canada), p. 4
November 9, 2010

Dear editor,
The great debate featuring creationist versus evolutionist finally made a rather late appearance in our small town, courtesy of the Pentecostal Assembly of Carbonear. There was a rehash of the same old “evidence” that to the “ believers,” especially the children in attendance, left no doubt that the earth is 6,000 years-old and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.

The slick but rather disjointed presentation which included computer graphics and animations, fossils and what was claimed to be casts of fossils were presented as conclusive proof that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is false.

Who could dispute a cast of a fossil that showed a dinosaur footprint overlaid by a human footprint? I approach ideas with a healthy skepticism, realizing that breakthroughs in science often come from radical thinkers; however, my mantra is that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”

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What a sad conclusion this article makes. Apparently the authors believe that pastors will repackage their message to make Christianity more palatable. Judging from what we’ve seen from various ‘new’ movements such as the Emergent church and other appeals to “buffet-style” Christianity, they are correct…but a bit late in pointing this out!

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Losing faith
Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, and David E. Campbell, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, are the authors of “American Grace: How Religion Divides
Los Angeles Times, page A33.
October 17, 2010

Young people are rejecting organized religion they see as too politically conservative.

The most rapidly growing religious category today is composed of those Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. While middle-aged and older Americans continue to embrace organized religion, rapidly increasing numbers of young people are rejecting it.

As recently as 1990, all but 7% of Americans claimed a religious affiliation, a figure that had held constant for decades. Today, 17% of Americans say they have no religion, and these new “nones” are very heavily concentrated among Americans who have come of age since 1990. Between 25% and 30% of twentysomethings today say they have no religious affiliation — roughly four times higher than in any previous generation.

So, why this sudden jump in youthful disaffection from organized religion? The surprising answer, according to a mounting body of evidence, is politics. Very few of these new “nones” actually call themselves atheists, and many have rather conventional beliefs about God and theology. But they have been alienated from organized religion by its increasingly conservative politics.

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Cambridge University Press has recently published a new book on Nietzsche’s views about Darwin and Darwinism. What’s interesting is that the author, Dirk R. Johnson, takes the approach that Nietzsche was NOT a Darwinist. Both creationist and evolutionists should find this a challenging book to read.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s complex connection to Charles Darwin has been much explored, and both scholarly and popular opinions have tended to assume a convergence in their thinking. In this study, Dirk Johnson challenges that assumption and takes seriously Nietzsche’s own explicitly stated “anti-Darwinism.” He argues for the importance of Darwin for the development of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but he places emphasis on the antagonistic character of their relationship and suggests that Nietzsche’s mature critique against Darwin represents the key to understanding his broader (anti-)Darwinian position. He also offers an original reinterpretation of the Genealogy of Morals, a text long considered sympathetic to Darwinian naturalism, but which he argues should be taken as Nietzsche’s most sophisticated critique of both Darwin and his followers. His book will appeal to all who are interested in the philosophy of Nietzsche and its cultural context.

Contents

Introduction; Part I. Early Darwinism to the ‘Anti-Darwin’: 1. Towards the ‘Anti-Darwin’: Darwinian meditations in the middle period; 2. Overcoming the ‘Man’ in Man: Zarathustra’s Transvaluation of Darwinian categories; 3. Nietzsche Agonistes: a personal challenge to Darwin; Part II. Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals: 4. Nietzsche’s ‘Nature’; Or, whose playing field is it anyway?; 5. The birth of morality out of the spirit of the ‘Bad Conscience’; 6. Darwin’s ‘Science’: or, how to beat the shell game; Conclusion; Bibliography.

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