Re: Carl Baugh

Joel and Dawn Duff (virkotto@intrnet.net)
Sun, 15 Mar 1998 15:30:15 -0600

At 09:58 AM 3/15/98 -0500, Steve Schimmrich wrote:
chop chop
> The most complete information about him has been put together by
>Glen Kuban at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy.html where you
>can read about Carl's claims regarding the Paluxy "mantracks", his
>lies about having PhD degrees in various branches of science (his
>story changes periodically), and how he is even criticized by some
>young-earth creationists. Do a search on Baugh's name on AltaVista
>(http://www.altavista.digital.com) and on the Talk Origins archives
>and lots of information will come up.
>
> Privately, many young-earth creationists do disassociate themselves
>from Baugh, but it's hard to find any who do so publicly (read Kuban's
>essay to see how, sadly, criticism of Baugh was banished from a YEC web
>site). The ICR has also backed of supported many of Baugh's claims
>regarding Paluxy. Perhaps some YEC's on this list would like to speak
>about Baugh?

As I wrote privately to Jeff, I have a statement published on web by the
publishers of Creation Magazine (from which YEC organization I can't
remember). Anyway the statement called "What About Carl Baugh!" was
supposedly copied from their sister organization in Australia, the Creation
Science Foundation. This statement responding to Carl Baugh has since been
pulled from their web site but if anyone is interested in a copy I would be
happy to send it to them. It isn't anything that was officially published
in their magazine but I take it to be at least a valid statement from a
Scientific Creationists organization. Below I have copied a post I sent to
another list regarding Carl Baugh and it includes selections from this
statement.

-------------------
begin quote
XXXXX wrote:
>Dr. Carl Baugh, a baptist, but holding Ph.D in paleontology, has
>demonstrated pretty convincingly that snake poison in a pre-flood
>atmosphere could very well have been medicinal in nature. Something to do
>with proteins, electromagnetic charge, etc. Apparently, the result of this
>research now causes people to use stun guns to treat snake bits and when
>properly used, the person feels better after the bite than before since the
>protein is changed from a poisonous configuration to a healing
>configuration.

XXXX and others,

Please take the following for what it is: information regarding the claims
of Carl Baugh that needs to be known in order to judge his claims. The
reference to Carl Baugh throws up big red flags and let me relay some
information that I think will show very clearly why.

Last year on the web, Answers in Genesis posted information that came from
The Creation Science Foundation in Australia. Basically it is warning about
the false teachings of Carl Baugh. Since the page is no longer on-line I
will type of a major portion of it here (typing errors are mine obviosly):

"Carl Baugh's teaching,
One Dr. Carl Baugh has recently been given consideragel television exposure
by an American tele-evangelist. Creation Science Foundation (CSF) has had
many calls from people who have seen the shows and suspect that some things
are not quite right about Dr. Baugh's teaching.

It is with heavy hear that we criticise others who may be well-intentioned
but are doing damage to the cause of Christ though ill-founded claims.
Carl Baugh is apparently a genuine Christian man, but he says many things
which are just plain silly.

Incidentally, Carl Baugh's doctorate is in the subject of Christan
Education, not science. He got his doctorate by correspondence study with
Pacific College, a small, biblically sound evangelical institituion in
Melbourne, Australia, Sadly when it comes to science, Dr. Baugh's
statements show a lack of scientific competence.

Some of Carl Baugh's more outlandish claims contained in his videotapes
"Panorama of Creation:"

1) Before the flood, the earth was surrounded by hydrogen which was so cold
it was metallic and this collapsed when God shouted. This is nonsense ...
2)People could hear the "singing" of the stars before the Flood.
Apparently the metallic hydrogen (which could not have existed) enabled
this to happen.
3) Poeple could "feel" the time before the Flood
4) People can affect radioactive decay rates with their minds. There is
absolutely no evidence for this.
5) Eggs do not hatch outside the earth's magnetic field. Baugh claimed
that NASA did an experiment demonstrating this. Absolute nonsense.
6) Granites (which contain radioactive elements) are not exploding because
they are in "perfect balance"
7) He argues that radioactive minerals align themselves with the magnetic
field, which is nonsense
8) He says that peoplle were smarter before the Flood....

Baugh confuses many things. he confuses the pre-flood and pre-fall worlds
in saying that there was no violence among animals "before the flood". He
confuses micro- and macro-evolution getting them completely reversed.

Baugh exagerates. For example, in discussing the Setterfield theory on
slowing light, he says that it was calculated in the "largest computer in
Australia" (not true) and that scientists "havent been able to refute it".
The latter claim ignores the voluminous criticisms from creationst
scientists alone against Settefield's idea. Few, if any, creationist
scientists with proper research degrees in science would not support the
theory, and many never supported the idea......

Checking the Claims
CSF, as one of the major creationist organisations world-wide, wrote to Dr.
Baugh two years ago asking for documentation regarding such astonishing
claims as chlorophylls being found on a T. rex tooth, alleged tapes of Neil
Armstrong, a NASA experiment showing that eggs do not hatch outside of a
magnetic field, and a tomato plant that grew to 30 feet tall and produced
5000 tomatoes when grown under light supposedly simulating pre-Flood
conditions. The only reply we received had enclosed "documentation" which
was nothing of the sort.

I snipped two paragraphs here,

We are part of a world-wide network of qualified scientists who are
working to understand the evidence in the light of the biblical account.
All the creation scientists we have spoken to regard Dr. Baugh's teaching
as a serious embarrassment.

.....

Muddying the water?
It is sad that Carl Baugh will "muddy the water" for many Christians and
non-Christains. Some Christians will try to use Baugh's "evidences" in
witnessing and get "shot down" by someone who is scientifically literate.
The ones witnessed to will thereafter be wary of all creation evidences and
even more inclined to dismiss Christians as nut cases not worth listening
to.

....
We would rather be spending all of our time positively encourageing and
equipping rather than coutnering the well-intentioned but misguided efforts
of some like Carl Baugh, but we cannot stand idly by knowing people are
being misled. Truth sets people free, not error!"

----------
All the above is from CSF. Anyone who wants the hardcopy I will gladly
send you a copy. I think the above statement is really very kind to Carl
Baugh especially with regard to his credentials. He is not a Ph.D in
paleontology as he has claimed himself to be and he has a long history of
claiming to have many degrees. You can read about the contorted ways he
has gotten several degrees and honerary degrees at:

http://members.aol.com/Paluxy2/degrees.htm

If this site doesn't work I can send a hard copy of this too. From Carl
Baugh's own web site you can learn about his trip to Papua New Guinae
recently in which "we believe we found evidence of living Pterodactyls. We
made five night-sightings of the glow of Pterodactyl-type creatures."
"According to the nationals, the Pterodactyls are bioluminescent. That
means their chest, undersection, and tail will glow much like a large
firefly.... We saw the glow come off the ground and extend into the trees.
We often saw it fly through the air, as well as near the ocean."

I have just relayed a very small portion of the material I have gathered on
Carl Baugh but I think it is enough to make my point that we need to be
careful not to have too much faith in peoples claims just because they are
christians making these claims. I fear that Carl Baugh is one who like in
the secular world is to ready to see lights in the sky and call them UFO's
without even considering the alternative possibilities. So while I do not
know anything specifically about this example of snake venom I would
address it wtih much caution given the reputation of the person making the
claims. Even Baugh's most famous claim of human and dinosaur footprints in
Texas are for the most part now dismissed by other creation scientists (by
dismissed I mean they no longer use them as evidence - even the book that
Morris wrote on them has been withdrawn from the booklist and the video of
Baugh's is no longer being pushed by ICR - I can provide some references).

XXXX, I realize you may not have had any reason to doubt this man when you
decided to carry his videos but I would strongly suggest that you research
him further, look up the web sites and the references, call people at ICR
and CRC. You may not like the person who researched his credentials (web
site on previous post) but he does give extensive references to where he
got his information. I have checked some out and they appear credible.
Philip Stott aluded to several claims of Baugh's at the CLA conference and
in his book sites his claims liberaly. I would hope that he would consider
this information in the next edition of his book.

Let me reitterate that Carl Baugh is not a PhD in paleontolgy. At different
times he has claimed to have advanced degrees in paleontology, anthroplogy,
geology, hydrology. If he has represented himself to you as a PhD in
paleontolgy I would ask that you check out the claim for yourself before
you start selling videos to Christians in which this person is claiming to
be an expert in this field.

I am making such a big deal of this because I believe it is important that
information like this is put out or else people will be easily deceived.
Don't take my word for it reread the quotes from the CSF in the previous
post.

Sincerely,

Joel Duff

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