Pure Talk | Answering Atheists with Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson

hi I'm Billy Hall and welcome to answering a theist a pure talk series brought to you by pure flix calm I am excited today to be here with dr. Nathaniel Jenson how are you good it's a real pleasure now you are a research biologist you're a speaker you work here at Answers in Genesis some people some atheist would say oh you know science and faith they can't go hand in hand how would you respond to them or what some journalists like to tell me that's they say you disagree with all of your scientific colleagues is there some vast conspiracy or do we throw out science boys do another one poisoned door number two knowing that either ants will make us look foolish and I say there's a third answer it's that most scientists aren't aware that there's a whole comprehensive scientifically testable model that exists that explains the day equally well if not better than evolution but we have an entire educational system that forbids teaching any of any of that and people can say conspiracy or not that just the way it is it's empirical fact and most people I run into couldn't tell me what creationists believe they're shocked when I say we've got testable predictions it just just all so new and they can't believe it's true and part of that's because in their arsenal of arguments against creation that's predicated on these things not being true so there's there's a whole enterprise that has found its way into the cultural mainstream into news organisations journalists all this now is ready to be it is actually set up for a big shock when they find out what's actually going on well and it's interesting that you say that because you mentioned journalists you know there's media there's the Hollywood factor too and then and then universities and schools not just universities all the way down the line it's almost like everywhere you learn it's really been sort of poisoned against this idea that people aren't even hearing it yes yes and I recently wrote a book to try to get this into the mainstream and from cover to cover literally front cover to back cover everything we tried to to to make it such that no one's gonna put this book down no turn offs just everything to create curiosity establish credibility so that they'll turn the page at every stage and what I've discovered is there's these cultural barriers that have been erected these these almost impenetrable walls that as soon as they find out just the fact your creationist and discussion no they're not even gonna have no interview no not even going to crack the book they don't they they find they're loathe to even pay money to buy the book and so that's not something I expected to see to be it's to have it so entrenched our opponents have done an excellent job creating a culture in which just that mention is a conversation stopper and I can even think of an example when I was in Boston at a church and the pastor had me come back and speak and he said and he's a young earth creationist but he said could you maybe save that for the end or make that a lesser part of your lecture because he knows and especially in Boston the more liberal parts of the country 6,000 years as a conversation stopper it's become equivalent to Flat Earth it's become equivalent to anything that you name it that people think is ridiculous so even if your goal is to simply question evolution if you mention 6,000 years that's the code word for oh this this guy's a lunatic so that's not something I appreciate it just because I've grown up with of course this is true and so to discover there's a whole culture that's been erected against this to such an extent you can't even talk about it that's that's mind-boggling to me well and that does seem like there I think that's where we are in culture right now just having conversations about things it's become very easy to say oh you don't agree with me and when one side has that power it's very easy when you have Hollywood media universities to push it out and and then nobody's even heard it so the mere mention of this discussion is is crazy to them like why would we allow it instead of saying okay well if we think you're crazy well let's sit down and talk about it what's the harm in having that conversation right in a sense you could almost say that they've applied evolution to the discussion so it's not an equal exchange of ideas and let's see which one is right it's survival of the fittest so if you're in power doesn't matter except they've rigged the whole system now they're in the power they're the fittest survive and it doesn't matter what anyone else says we're not gonna give them the time of day once you have power you can discuss it that's what it comes down to this well let's let's talk about a little bit about replacing Darwin the new Origin of Species this is the book yes so tell me a little bit about the book the goal what you're hoping people take away from it yes I wrote the book I wish I had when I was a student to hand to my unbelieving or evolutionary classmates something that they could pick up that there's nothing that would turn them off in the sense of I when I wrote it I made sure and I had a picture of someone in that category basically an unbeliever so I can look at them always be reminded they don't know anything about the Bible they don't assume anything about the Bible they're not asking questions about the Bible they're not asking questions about creation Darwin settled it so I have to find a way on every page to make them think oh wait a minute that's not something I thought of maybe I should reconsider this or that challenge is what I took for granted so that they have to keep turning and and slowly reveal an answer to them show them answers and so necess it instead of maybe telling them and being in your face about it I have to sort of lure them into this topic and by the end of the book have them say whoa I never saw this coming I didn't know that there was so much scientific evidence against what I was saying and in support of it another idea there's there's good scientific evidence for the creation model what we've been told in the court system is wrong so many of those points will come through and whether that was my goal to to have a comprehensive one-stop we're gonna take you where you are right now yes evolution is true gonna take you where you are right now even if you don't know anything about genetics which is really where the debates at and walk you through ten chapters of science put the gospel at the end take them from A to Z and show them where the debates really ought today now when we when we look at misconceptions right we're talking about people not having knowledge not knowing about this other side this this other point of discussion but when it comes to to creation you know you would said people don't even know what creationists believe what do you think are the biggest misconceptions about creation there's so many but here's what comes to mind first having read so many of their books and thinking about the few times because they don't do it much the few times they try to engage creation science and the typical view again if they touch it most of them just try to ignore it and don't even deal with it just it's it's religion so let's not talk about they treat it as if we're still in 1859 what's the 1859 creationist view it's the one that Darwin tried to push against you can you can get a sense for it just by reading his book how does he treat his opponents his opponents in his book are people who think God creates every species in its current location which doesn't at all fit the idea of God destroying the whole planet with a flood 4,500 years ago but that's what they viewed erroneous unbiblical view and that's a fairly easy view to scientifically demolish I can easily scientifically demolish that view it doesn't come from the scripture either and so that gives rise to all sorts of misconceptions about the ark well no way you can fit millions of animals on board the ark that's foolish well of course if that's what you think is what the Bible teaches it's not what the Scriptures actually teaches that God creates kinds these are not species not even the next level of classification genus but family so dogs wolves coyotes foxes are all part of the same family even though they're separate species Noah brings two of that family on board the ark whole bunch of species form after the flood that's a huge difference from what Darwin proposed it effectively renders nearly all of his arguments against creation useless so he's got a bunch of arguments that demolish God critics species they don't apply to this kinds view and so Richard Dawkins coin all these people aren't aware of this and continue to repeat evidences because evolutionary evidences are largely unchanged since Darwin that that don't apply to the modern debate science is a process of disproving things Darwin disproved the old creationist idea he did not disprove the modern idea which means we're on a level playing field again and so all these evidences you find in textbooks you find in popular books those do not disprove creation which means you can't use it in support of evolution if you're in a crime scene and and two suspects are equally indicted you've got to look for some other evidence to figure out who did it the same is true in this case this might sound like I'm not a scientist I'm gonna ask this question now when we talk about kinds let's say you know a male and a female dog some kind of dog are brought on the ark they come off after how does that process work because obviously there's micro and macro-evolution I would assume so can you just explain so then how do you end up with different when those kinds come off of different kinds off of that if that makes sense different she's one of the best illustrations that this comes from Darwin himself is opening chapters that few people like to talk about today for some reason I don't understand what their great arguments he compares what happens in farms in pet stores to what happens in the wild so let's use the dog family there's I think just over 30 species of wolves and foxes coyotes so forth alive today dog breeds what we have in our homes what we set our minds to mixing and so when humans have set their minds to just mixing and matching males and females taking the genetic diversity that already exists in producing bigger versions smaller versions long haired short-haired red colored brown hair and so forth all of that just by reshuffling what exists because no one's going in there and microscopically changing the DNA with a pipette or with some you know some sort of new technology we're just taking what exists and picking the parents we've produced all of these breeds in a short amount of time from what exists so that's that's know an argument from the greater to the lesser all of this variety just by mixing and matching on the farm in our in our homes you go to the wild there's less diversity there's less variety in the wild and what we see in the farms so it's all that much easier for these guys just to mix and match parents by chance by spreading out around the globe the same type of processes apply there as on the farm they have a whole bunch of genetic diversity we can't see it's just basic Mendelian genetics its dominance and recessive you think of red hair you can have red haired children from parents who do not have red hair because it can be in a recessive state a hidden state basically you multiply that by a millionfold because we can do that now we know that's true based on the DNA sequences that we have there's all sorts of hidden genetic potential in these creatures and we know that's now true is it for a fact now that we have their DNA so it's just a matter of mixing and matching it let's say that one one set of parents goes off to Asia one goes off to Africa they're taking some genetic potential with them and over time it emerges that's what gives rise to new species that's something we can elaborate on with much more till today because we have DNA but we can see the hint of that even in Darwin's day but what we've been able to do on the farm and pet shops and so forth wanted to do something writes about that yes exactly that's really fascinating thank you for explaining that now so what do you say to somebody who says 6,000 years is crazy it's billions of years that you know that what do you say to that person who how would you start to approach them and say listen this is why you need to think about this over here this other idea I would give two answers and I would have given a different answer ten years ago versus today and the reason for that is because we've made tremendous advances in genetics on this issue so that in my mind and this is maybe why I'm so shocked by people thinking this this term itself 6,000 years as a pariah something a bad word a dirty word almost because it's just so ridiculous there is so much genetic evidence for 6,000 years that I don't even give it a second thought so for example this is what many people don't realize even of evolutionists don't realize we have in our in all of our cells with few exceptions DNA and every generations sperm and egg pass on DNA the DNA changes there's mistakes that happen and we live in an imperfect world it's not copied perfectly well that means it's it's a regular process and so to have a clock all you need is a regular repeating process every generation changes happen so we don't appreciate it because we live we see two or three generations we die well you add this up over several hundred generations your there's a history that's recorded and so if we look at the DNA of people around the globe we look at the DNA of animals around the globe how many differences exists how fast does it change we've got a clock a mathematical calculation we can use and say just species to humans look young do we have a lot of genetic differences is the clock been ticking for a long time or short time and over and over again what we see in our DNA is abundant evidence there isn't enough DNA differences for us to been around hundreds of thousands millions of years it looks like we arose just six thousand years ago and I think most people be shocked by that and floored by it and I can make that argument even stronger so let me give this background you go back 40 years in the creation/evolution debate what's the main argument against creation whatsit what since constant federal law why can't creation sign creation signs be taught in the classroom well it's not science it doesn't make testable predictions that's flat-out false we have now predictions in genetics we've met the gold standard of science which is hardly anyone is aware of this but does evolution have testable they claim it to be true it could be can you but can you really test it you couldn't recreate it I mean it would seem like that's the same standard they would have to be held to if that was exactly exactly okay and the way they phrase it the way they apply it is maybe the better way to say it is there are certain expectations they have if evolution were true in practice it's a really plastic theory and I can give examples of evolutionists from the 50s saying well we know evolutions been going on for millions of years and so it's hopeless to find shared DNA among species it's just been going on for too long mistakes have been happening too long that's a prediction expectation of evolution lo and behold we find that mice and fruit flies used a similar section of DNA to build their eyes even though fruit fly is a compound eye and a mouse has an eye like ours well we've just falsified a pollution evolution haven't we we've just found the opposite of what evolutions have expected no that's now the textbook evidence for common ancestry so evolution predicts one thing the opposite is found well now that's the fulfillment of the prediction of evolution and these sorts of things happen below the radar in technical journals and most people don't see it but this is the reality of evolution in really evolution isn't testable it isn't predictable if it can explain polar opposite conclusions and both of them being both of them be confirmation of evolution you can't have it both ways is really what it comes down to but evolutionists want to have it both ways and they call those predictions when and when in fact evolution is an idea that after the fact explains everything and of course if you can explain everything after the fact by storytelling you don't explain anything well it's just it's a theory essentially of how you think something happened right yeah so so Adam and Eve let's just talk about this briefly because it is interesting when you talk to atheists the assumption that it's absurd and many there are Christians who fall in the camp of oh genesis is not to be taken literally but when we talk about Adam and Eve to human beings at the start that were created that we all flow from in your mind do we have evidence that that is something that that happened that truthfully happened we have I would even go as far as they we have overwhelming evidence that this is true and we can see this from multiple genetic angles and actually back up the place we should look for this where she would look for the evidence for Adam and Eve the creation/evolution debate has been dominated by fossils by geology by all sorts of other fields of science anatomy embryology everything but genetics for a hundred and fifty years by and large and that's for historical reasons we didn't discover the structure of DNA we didn't know DNA is for genetics is found until 1953 the term genetics wasn't even around when Darwin wrote in his book that's how primitive understanding was but that's what's inherited in sperm and egg sperm and egg don't pass on a fossil they don't pass on a bone or a hand they pass on an instruction manual so if you want to find the history of humanity that's we got to look and we have clocks in our DNA that go back 6,000 years that easily fit to people where the where the debate really is and where the evolution is go to say what you can't have two people is the DNA that's inherited from both parents so I'm a mix of my parents you can see that in my physical features which ultimately go back to my DNA dad passes on half mom passes on half and I have within my cells two different versions of DNA so that's how DNA can be hidden well most people evolutionist assume every difference I have within my body every difference between me and you is ultimately the result of mistakes over time well if you look within my body within my cells and you say you look at the DNA of my parents the differences within my cells most of them the vast majority of them are not the result of mistakes from mom and dad to put numbers on it about 80 of the differences in my cells are doing mistakes for mom and dad millions of them are simply inherited so what if you go back to Adam and Eve what God created Adam and Eve would God create Adam with two identical versions of DNA and Eve the same way you can run sort of this mental experiment if that's true they would essentially produce clones genetically identical offspring to them and that's weird to me that God would create the world that way you go be be fruitful and clone yourselves be fertile multiply I think the best evidence and to me theological this makes more sense God creates Adam and Eve with differences from the start with the appearance of parents and that's not deceptive because God can create any which way he wants to I don't think God creates Adam as a zygote a fertilized egg he creates it as adults so he can work the garden that sort of thing and that's not deceptive because God tells him how he created him and Adam is create I think as an adult to do the work of the garden to honor God and glorify Him in that way so why wouldn't God create Adam as an adult parent with differences in his DNA Eve with differences in hers they could produce all the races of in so called races of humanity in one generation be fruitful multiply fill the earth all that and genetics supports that and the reason evolutionists argue against that view they don't know they don't actually argue against what I've just said they argue against the existence of the couple they don't even consider the possibility that God creates Adam and Eve genetically diverse well because that's that's a divine act and we can't allow that in our scientific discussions even though it makes testable predictions and we can see the ramifications of this in people around the globe today shifting gears just a little bit as we round to a close here I'm curious for you what it was that that drove you into both the worlds of science and faith for me I grew up in a Christian home in a young earth creation home I was home school through eighth grade went to a small Christian high school the only school in the area that explicitly said were a young earth school and I guess you could say I read double-o my growing up yours near the evolutionary view knew the creation views that went up went off to college was prepared there were no surprises in the classroom which I think every student who wants to go off to college you have to have that preparation otherwise they're going to be overwhelmed by the depth of the evolutionary arguments that you hear and we hear somebody said testimonies is that after the fact even though I had that strong upbringing I don't know that I was born again until about halfway through graduate school I lived in sin looking at pornography for so many years knew the gospel knew I was to live a purer life but didn't see the connection it was old news in a sense the gospel was not good news and just through sitting with with his scriptures for over a period of several weeks for reasons I can't explain because that's usually all salvation happens the gospel became good news could see the beauty of holiness could see the majesty of God's characteristics in okay this is what makes the Christian life attractive this is the hope of heaven the joy of eternity is being the hidden history radiant presence and that's I think what God has to open everyone's eyes to for them to be born again and that also shifted my focus from maybe a mainstream scientific career or academia working on cancer to what can I do scientifically that's maybe more of a direct ministry application so I started out with the Institute for Creation Research worked there six years doing research on genetics and the Origin of Species and human origins have continued that now and it's it's just sort of a kid in a candy shop now we can now look back to human history with DNA we can solve historical mysteries we can with the project I'm working on right now is the pre Clement history of the Americas that are rewriting things that no secularist is ever gonna set their mind to it's just crazy stuff so much so that I even sat down recently and thought to myself there's so many questions I want to answer and then it struck me I'm never gonna answer them all before I die which is sort of depressing but also reminded me of sort of my own conversion experience that I went into this knowing Luke 16 use what you have to win eternal friends so there's so many research questions to do but at some point you also have to say let's train the next generation because people have to come after you there's eternal friends to win which happens to research but also through direct mentorship and so these are the things I'm keeping in mind now looking forward to the second half of my life and to eternity what can I accomplish with what I've been given before the Lord calls me home for maximum eternal joy and maximum eternal joy if the people are come in contact with well and you spoke a little bit about being about sort of equipping there's there's a little discussion about equipping the next generation to you're talking about you know you're not gonna be able to answer all these questions before you die and there's a whole other generation coming up that behind you and some of the stats for Generation Z are a little scary yeah so there's a big responsibility for us to impart wisdom and for you to impart wisdom in your ministry work on the next generation now you went to Harvard correct and the reason I bring that up is because when we think of Harvard we think of big famous well-known great secular school and yet you came from this faith background and so I think there's a lot of young people going into the world going into schools like Harvard and they're losing their faith they're not finding that you had the opposite experience right yeah of finding your faith later on really finding it after the upbringing you had what would you say to parents who might be watching whose kids maybe are in college or maybe in 10 years are gonna go to college but how do we equip that based on your experience three things come to mind one is it's it's essential for students to redouble and I look around at what churches have done parents have done how many students are still going off to secular college and falling away where there are a handful of young worth schools but I think so so many are going up to secular college you have to have red double I'm hoping Answers in Genesis I've been in discussions currently trying to establish some sort of college prep program where a look if no one else is doing it we're gonna take your students for a summer and we're gonna sit down we're gonna redouble we don't have to read all the biology textbooks because 90% of it doesn't have to do with origins we're gonna sit and focus laser-like you're gonna go into biology let's read the biology let's read Richard Dawkins to Jerry Coyne let's read the creationist materials let's read the materials of theistic evolutionists let's read the the academic theological arguments are gonna run into it inner varsity and other places that are gonna give you maybe a different view so that you go off it's not a surprise you're prepared and you can take the discussion to your peers you can take the discussion to your professors in a winsome and and discreet way because they're you know sudents aren't paying to hear you talk they're paying you the college professor talk but there's ways to to raise questions in class that's essential you have to read double secondly you have to be connected to a local church I was in a church and actually when I first got to Boston one of my housemates said you need to go to a church that you can walk to he was a he was a chemistry guy postdoc in the lab and he said if you're in lab light and you go to hop on the subway for 45 minutes you're gonna go you're gonna stay in lab but if you can walk to church you're gonna go and that I think was instrumental for me I was at a church I could easily get to that was a lot of peers who held me accountable encouraged me were they with me there was this time Oh suicidal at one point in graduate school all of that is essential and thirdly just a prayer support having a strong Christian upbringing in people who supported me back home in Wisconsin even though I was out east all of those together are critical I think and maybe even a fourth one not just scientific but a strong theological upbringing there's so many temptations Harvard has the primal scream I learned I didn't love on the undergraduate side but apparently there's a tradition where in the winter everyone gets naked run runs around campus I mean you can't make this stuff up it's crazy stuff and that was 10-15 years ago I don't know what they're doing now but probably worse I think most parents don't realize that level of depravity here's the story another story I went on my college visit trip they put me up and I roomed with a fellow Wisconsinite who was a second year graduate student and I heard about the I think the seminars and the retreats and such when I came there that fall I said what what happens at these retreats and he wasn't a believer he's thought about it from it he said debauchery I said that's good to know thank you but that's that's that's the way the world works and it's not advertised that's not what they show you in the campus you have to be aware that's what's coming we exactly and we appreciate you know you sharing your wisdom on all these topics but also on that because I think that's important for parents and families yes and thank you for coming down today it's been a real pleasure thank you thanks so much for tuning in you can go to facebook.com slash pure flix and pure flix com for more daily inspiring content [Music] with over 10,000 titles it would be impossible for us to show you everything on pure flix calm but let's give it a shot [Music] you you

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Keywords: christian channel, christian worship, christian church, christianity bible, Answering, christianity videos, christian videos, Atheist, Atheism, Atheists, christianity channel, christianity 101, christian interview, pure, theology, christian, flix, christ, christian vlogs, Answering Atheists, christianity theology, pure flix, church, 2019 christian movies, pureflix, god

Id: 03hcw1VYAgM

Length: 26min 59sec (1619 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 18 2019