This article is kept for information
29th October 2008
A conference will be held on November 3, 2008, in La Sapienza University’s Pathology Amphitheatre at the Umberto Policlinico in Rome to coincide with that of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) from October 31 to November 3. Both discuss the theory of evolution in the light of the up-coming 2009 Darwinian year celebrations.
Whereas the Pontifical Academy discusses data proposed for evolution, scientists at the Sapienza conference will present the scientific facts against the theory. The participants claim to represent thousands of qualified scientists who disagree with the popular view of evolution but whose voices are damped down by the evolutionist majority.
The scientists taking part who oppose evolution had originally sought admittance to the PAS conference. They did so following the appeal by Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, in Truth and Tolerance, that the arguments for and against evolution should be heard with objectivity. He wrote, “This dispute has therefore to be approached objectively and with a willingness to listen, by both sides—something that has hitherto been undertaken only to a limited extent.” Unfortunately, the PAS ignored the scientists’ request. Consequently, and in order that the case against evolution be heard, the same scientists decided to hold their own conference. It should be emphasised that these scientists are not “creationists” and would be offended to be considered as such.
The arguments against evolution are rarely heard because academic institutions such as the PAS prefer to restrict their presentations to data that, in their view, support the theory. As a result the case against the theory is largely unknown to the public. For instance, the highly embarrassing fact that recent laboratory experiments have shown that stratified sedimentary rocks, containing the fossils alleged to prove evolution, formed very quickly. The experiments were conducted by one of the speakers at the conference, sedimentologist Guy Berthault, and published by the Russian Academy of Sciences. A paleohydraulic analysis in the field accompanying these experiments showed that major rock formations deposited not in millions of years but in 0.01% of the time attributed to them by the geological time-scale.
The effect of this conference on the global scientific community may well be comparable to the effect of the current financial crisis on the global economy: Nothing will ever be the same!
The disciplines represented at the conference are:
Sedimentology – Guy Berthault, a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, France, a member of the French Geological Society and the Association of Sedimentologists. His experiments have been published by the French Academy of Sciences, the Journal of the Geological Society of France, and the Russian Academy of Sciences journal Lithology and Mineral Resources.
Biology – Pierre Rabischong, previous dean of the Montpelier Medical University and an expert in computer-aided surgery.
Genetics – Maciej Giertych, a population geneticist who holds an M.A. in forestry from Oxford University in England, a Ph. D. in tree physiology from Toronto University, Canada, and a D.Sc. in genetics from the Agricultural Academy in Poznan, Poland.
Geophysics - Josef Holzschuh, a geophysicist with a Ph.D. from the University of Sydney in Australia. He works in the field of seismic processing.
Radiometric Dating - Jean de Pontcharra, head of the Research Group, CEA-LETI (Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Informatique). He has a doctorate in solid state physics from the University of Grenoble, France.