Recently, I published a post titled Stop the Presses! Preeminent Evangelical Archeologist PROVES Evolution is False. Meant to be snarky, the post quotes Evangelical preacher Dr. David Tee — whose real name is David Thomas Thiessen. (Theissen has started using yet another name, D. David Thiessen, for his YouTube channel.)
Over the years, we [I] have written more than enough articles proving that the theory of evolution is not true.
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Evolution is what anyone decides it to be and then changes the physical evidence to fit their particular version.
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The Bible has the theory of evolution beat no matter how you look at this issue.
Geoff Toscano, a long-time reader of this blog and a personal friend replied:
Oh brother, I’ve wasted at least 5 minutes of my life reading Tee’s article! Just when I thought the fool couldn’t get any more stupid, he proves me wrong, once again! The irony is that he accuses evolutionary scientists of creating fairy stories along the lines of Hansel and Gretel, when it’s actually a book of fairy tales that he seeks to defend.
He misses the most basic understanding of why evolution must be true, and that is its explanatory power. Take away all the evidence we have in terms of DNA, the fossil record, variation, adaptation, and so on, and still we have the explanatory power. Evolution provides an explanation of features we observe in every life form that special creation cannot begin to approach. It explains biodiversity, vestiges and atavisms, bad design (if god designed humans then he did a terrible job!), and especially the manner in which life forms seem strangely to conform to their varying environments. An educated person cannot deny evolution: they are mutually exclusive.
Thiessen refuses to comment on this blog, choosing instead to “answer” comments on his site. Of course, Thiessen refuses to let people comment on his blog, nor does he have a contact page. You can, however, email Thiessen at kinship29@yahoo.com.
Titled Responding to Comments 4, Theissen “answered” five comments from this site. He had this to say to Geoff:
The person missing the point is the quoted commentator. Explanatory power means absolutely nothing. There is nothing to support the ‘explanatory power’. If you remove the made-up evidence, then the explanation makes no sense.
Also, explanatory power is not exclusive to evolution. Any alternative can have the same explanations credited to it. In fact, creation has the exact same explanatory power with one exception. Creation has all the evidence supporting it.
Like the late George Carlin, the commentator is judging God from only seeing humans and creation from the results of the fall and corruption that entered in at Adam’s sin. he did not and cannot see humans and creation as God created it.
God did a perfect job, but sin and corruption ruined what he did. The quoted commentator should blame evil not God. He also says that creatures adapt to different environments.
We have yet to see humans adapt to living underwater and fish to living out of water. Those are different environments. Moving to a different place on the dry surface of the Earth is not moving to a different environment.
It is simply moving to different weather patterns and temperatures. Nothing needs to change for adaptation to take place in that situation. Also, we have not seen one person adapt to the environment on the moon or in space. They still need protective gear to live.
This fact proves evolution false.
Geoff sent me a response to Thiessen that follows below. Geoff responds to Thiessen’s reply to him and several other commenters.
David Tee’s first comment makes no sense. I pointed out the explanatory power of evolution, and he countered with “There is nothing to support the ‘explanatory power’. If you remove the made-up evidence, then the explanation makes no sense.” He either didn’t read my comment properly or he didn’t understand it. Explanatory power IS the evidence so his reference to other evidence for evolution being made up is irrelevant. For example, the laryngeal nerve is explained perfectly by evolution, but makes no sense in his creation beliefs. That is the evidence, end of story.
As for his nonsense about humans adapting to living under water, he gets to be equally silly. Animals adapt to their environment, humans included. Life originated in the sea, then slowly started to move out of it onto dry land many millions of years, perhaps billions, of years ago. Animals that emerged evolved until they were able to live on the land without recourse to water. This explains why humans still have vestiges of gills (tail bones also, I might add). He’s also ridiculous in saying that different parts of dry land on Earth do not represent different environments. Really? Arctic versus the Sahara Desert? They aren’t just different weather patterns or temperatures, they require adaptation in a way almost as great as leaving the sea.
His point about not adapting to living in space or on the moon? (Ignoring that we’ve been able to access space for only a very few decades, whilst evolution requires thousands of years to make significant differences on the scale required). He really knows nothing about evolution. In fact, this comment is perhaps the most stupid I have ever seen from a creationist! It’s precisely because we haven’t adapted to such hostile conditions that we are unable to live in them! Should we be forced through circumstances one day to live on the moon then our bodies would adapt to the conditions, especially the gravity, but it’s unlikely we would ever be able to adapt to the lack of oxygen, which is essential for human existence, indeed all life (there are apparently tiny multi cells that exist without oxygen in parts of the ocean, but these aren’t relevant to Tee’s point). Plus, of course, we’d need water. There are technical ways of producing these but then we’d be adapting the environment to us. We can do this because we’ve evolved to be able to do it!
He says there are thousands of Christian biologists who reject evolution. False, there are almost none. Stephen Meyer of Discovery Institute is the only seemingly qualified scientist who makes the claim and he’s not a biologist. Michael Behe, who really formalised Intelligent Design, has since retreated and I think has either reverted to accepting evolution or at least gone very quiet. The thing is there are always outliers. People who are anti-vaxxers, or moon landing deniers, flat earthers, and many others can appear to be carrying some kind of qualification to lend them credibility. Even so, they remain outliers. They aren’t taken seriously by the scientific community, not because the scientific community is conspiring against them, but because the scientific community exists only because it is historically the only method whereby humanity progresses. Science works (and I define science widely in this regard, to include all methods of reasoning), where faith does not. Faith recently murdered a small child in Australia, a child who had every right to depend on her parents and other guardians for protection, but who was betrayed because her protectors thought the power of God was greater than the power of medicine.
Tee claims that unbelievers seek to exclude God from their work. Ignoring the fact that a very large proportion of scientists are themselves religious believers (though it is a much lower proportion than that found in other areas of life) the fact is that science excludes nothing, not even God. The point is that good science leads where it leads. Isaac Newton was a great scientist, but he was also a fervent believer. When he constructed his theory of gravity it was hailed as, rightly, one of the great scientific achievements of all time. Even so, he knew there was a small error for which he couldn’t account, so he attributed this to God keeping ultimate control of his creation. He was wrong because he didn’t know, and at the time couldn’t possibly have known, of relativity, something Einstein demonstrated centuries later. So God figured in the thinking of one of the greatest scientists of all time, but unfortunately God proved not to be the answer. If God is ever the answer, then science will discover this, it won’t be through faith.
On top of this, many attempts have been made by science to ‘find God’. There have been four peer-reviewed studies that have attempted to establish whether prayer is of any benefit in assisting ill patients to recover. Three indicated it provided no benefit greater than chance, whilst one suggested there may even be negative benefit. Indeed, every aspect of supernatural claim has been carefully investigated by science. Miracle claims, so-called paranormal events, weeping statues, hauntings, exorcisms, NDEs, etc., all have been studied and no evidence of anything other than perfectly natural explanations has ever been found.
Matt Ridley’s main claim to fame is that he was chairman of the bank that initiated the financial collapse in the UK in 2007 (a full year before Lehman Brothers failed) and had to give evidence to a Parliamentary Committee that wanted to know where he was whilst all this happened. He admitted that he didn’t really involve himself, rather it was his name that was important to the bank (he is actually Sir Matt Ridley, and part of a wealthy landowning family). He’s written some good science books aimed at children, but he’s verging on denialism in much of what he writes. His religious beliefs, however, are irrelevant to his science writing.
It is easy to conclude that Tee is simply delusional (which he undoubtedly is) but it’s much more than that, and I think he has to be regarded as an outright liar. He keeps insisting that there’s no evidence for evolution. He’s simply wrong. Evolution is supported by more evidence than any other branch of science. It is now such a vast subject that it has to be subdivided for study purposes. No serious scientist in the world denies it, and certainly no biologists, whether religious believers or not. He insists the bible is true, in the face of all the evidence that proves it is not, other than in minor, trivial, ways. Most believers, and certainly most religions, have come to terms with the realisation that evolution is a stark fact.
Tee yet again demonstrates the impossibility of his ever having obtained a legitimate doctorate. I’ll go further and allege that he’s never passed any formal academic examination in his life. It’s significant that he chooses to limit his reply to the comfort of his website, protected from comments, and certainly not daring to risk direct interaction on Bruce’s forum.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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His youtube channel has quite the influence, 5subscribers as of when this is being written. How much does anyone want to bet that reviled dumpster fire is one of them or if not, will be #6🤣.
I’m number five. 🤣 Even in his videos, he’s trying to hide who he really is: different name, AI generated content, AI voice meant to sound like a renowned British/Australian professor.
I was very open about using AI. Also, I do not get to pick the voice. But thank you for subscribing.
Pity you aren’t as open about your qualifications.
Here is Thiessen’s response:
We checked to see if anyone responded to our response to comments and sure enough one person did. We wouldn’t normally address this response as it is nothing but a thinly disguised personal attack. However, the author of the quoted words made so many errors in his response that we had to address a couple of them.
#1. I pointed out the explanatory power of evolution, and he countered with “There is nothing to support the ‘explanatory power’. If you remove the made-up evidence, then the explanation makes no sense.” He either didn’t read my comment properly or he didn’t understand it. Explanatory power IS the evidence so his reference to other evidence for evolution being made up is irrelevant.
We did not misread his comment as he originally said:
Take away all the evidence we have in terms of DNA, the fossil record, variation, adaptation, and so on, and still we have the explanatory power. Evolution provides an explanation of features we observe in every life form that special creation cannot begin to approach. It explains biodiversity, vestiges and atavisms, bad design (if god designed humans then he did a terrible job!), and especially the manner in which life forms seem strangely to conform to their varying environments.
Evolution does not explain anything without any real verifiable and credible evidence to support it. All they are saying without any evidence is that Evolution did it. That is not explanatory power and it is using the very same mentality the evolutionist complains about when Christians say God did it.
If you are not sure what explanatory power is, here is a definition:
giving an explanation about something:(source)
The theory of evolution without all the alleged evidence does nothing. Its explanatory power means nothing because there is no way to verify any of its claims. Evolution cannot explain anything because it lacks everything described in the 2nd quote.
Also, evolution cannot create anything it cannot conceive. It has no mind, no purpose for doing what it is doing, no foreknowledge of what is needed, and so on. It is an empty process that has no concept of anything or comprehension of what it is supposedly guiding.
The person making the response basically shifts what we just said about evolution to Creation. However, the difference is God has intelligence, a purpose for creating, foreknowledge, and the power to create everything that is needed for humans and animals, etc., to survive.
He basically waves his hand and makes all the facts disapper that support creation. Yet, there is nothing in evolution that explains anything. Even Richard Dawkins and other scientists have admitted that there is no information-gathering mechanism for evolution to bring to life new and more complicated life forms.
All that response is doing is making a baseless declaration with no facts to support his thesis. Evolution has yet to explain anything while divine creation explains everything. His declaration is made despite the myriad of evidence supporting the latter and disproving the former.
#2. As for his nonsense about humans adapting to living under water, he gets to be equally silly. Animals adapt to their environment, humans included. Life originated in the sea, then slowly started to move out of it onto dry land many millions of years, perhaps billions, of years ago. Animals that emerged evolved until they were able to live on the land without recourse to water
He can’t prove this, he just says it. The reason he says it is probably because he hates God and does not want to humble himself to serve Jesus. There was no nonsense in our reply but merely pointed out that there were no examples of animals or humans changing environments and adapting to a new environment.
He is what Mr. Ridely says- blind because he does not want to see.
#3. On top of this, many attempts have been made by science to ‘find God’. There have been four peer-reviewed studies that have attempted to establish whether prayer is of any benefit in assisting ill patients to recover. Three indicated it provided no benefit greater than chance, whilst one suggested there may even be negative benefit. Indeed, every aspect of supernatural claim has been carefully investigated by science. Miracle claims, so-called paranormal events, weeping statues, hauntings, exorcisms, NDEs, etc., all have been studied and no evidence of anything other than perfectly natural explanations has ever been found.
Even addressing this nonsense is a waste of time because you can’t find God via science. Science is not an authority over anything and is as blind as the unbelievers running it. Studying prayer is not finding God and is merely a strawman argument.
But we won’t get into this as like the entire content of his ‘response’ it is not supported by any real studies. Science is not designed to study the supernatural so it is out of its league in these attempts.
#4. Matt Ridley’s main claim to fame is that he was chairman of the bank that initiated the financial collapse in the UK in 2007 (a full year before Lehman Brothers failed) and had to give evidence to a Parliamentary Committee that wanted to know where he was whilst all this happened
This is par for the course for evolutionists. They only tell part of the story. Here is Matt Ridley’s bio, in brief and a link to read it all:
Matt Ridley’s books have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages and won several awards. His books include The Red Queen, The Origins of Virtue, Genome, Nature via Nurture, Francis Crick, The Rational Optimist, The Evolution of Everything, and How Innovation Works.
His TED talk “When Ideas Have Sex” has been viewed more than two million times.
He writes a weekly column in The Times (London) and writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal.
As Viscount Ridley, he was elected to the House of Lords in February 2013. He served on the science and technology select committee 2014-2017.
With BA and DPhil degrees from Oxford University, Matt Ridley worked for the Economist for nine years as science editor, Washington correspondent and American editor, before becoming a self-employed writer and businessman.
He was founding chairman of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle. He was non-executive chairman of Northern Rock plc and Northern 2 VCT plc.(source)
One failure does not destroy his successful achievements but the evolutionists will focus on that failure in order to dismiss anything they do not want to hear. A failure does not mean a person cannot make astute observations about people.
Like we said in the beginning, the response was a non-response because the author simply waved his hand in dismissal of anything he did not want to read. he ignores the fact that creation explains everything while evolution cannot exclude any alternative of explaining everything.
We have the science to back up creation where as there is nothing backing up evolution except subjective opinion. His dismissal of Christian biologists is a weak attempt to sound authoritative when he just ignores the facts.
He ends by saying we do not have a legitimate degree but he does not know us nor does he know what we did in our academic time so what does he know– like all evolutionists he knows nothing yet thinks he can speak about other people and their qualifications.
Personal attacks just undermine the point of view of the attacker, not the person on the receiving end. he had nothing in rebuttal but resorted to baseless false accusations and other nonsensical remarks that proved he does not have an open mind nor will look at a topic honestly.
He did not present any evidence to support his point of view which is typical of evolutionists because they have nothing to present. He needs to read the articles that we linked to in the previous response article and see the evidence against his theory.
Well Bruce, this insane rambling that Tee presents in response is par for the course and, dare I say, in line with expectations. There’s obviously no point in replying but I do have to comment on one of his contradictions. On the one hand he says that science isn’t able to investigate the supernatural or God (it doesn’t, incidentally, it checks claims made that impact on the real world and their causes), but at the end he says “ We have the science to back up creation where as there is nothing backing up evolution except subjective opinion.” Which is it to be? Does he want science or does he not?
Thiessen writes: “ He ends by saying we do not have a legitimate degree but he does not know us nor does he know what we did in our academic time so what does he know– like all evolutionists he knows nothing yet thinks he can speak about other people and their qualifications.”
We do know Thiessen has a Canadian Bible college degree. He refuses, as of this date, to say where he did his post-graduate work. He has been asked this question by numerous people over the years, yet Thiessen refuses to disclose where he received his master’s degree and doctorate. Certainly, he is free to do so, but he can’t fault people for thinking he either is lying or trying to hide where, exactly, he did his post-graduate work —if he did it at all. However, parading around as someone who has an earned doctorate when you don’t actually have one is misleading and dishonest.
Here’s my take: the quality of Thiessen’s writing reveals a lack of sound academic training. Even his theological writings reveal a lack of a comprehensive education. Thiessen’s understanding of the Christian gospel variates between heterodoxy and heresy (according to standard Evangelical doctrine). I suspect if he has any advanced degrees at all that he “earned” them through either a diploma mill (and there are a number of Evangelical diploma mills) or a correspondence school. Did you know that churches can start their own colleges and offer advanced degrees, including doctorates? I could start an online religious college tomorrow, with me being the only “professor.” Bruce Almighty Bible University could offer doctorates for $1995, with the only requirements being reading a bunch of Evangelical books and writing an over glorified term paper. For an extra $49, BABU will send the “graduate” a deluxe diploma suitable for framing and showing all their preacher buddies they have an “earned” doctorate.
Thiessen would rather people think poorly of him or view him as a liar than simply say where he earned his degrees. Again, his choice, but most people — even heathens — would want to be seen in a positive light. I would think that a good Christian preacher such as Thiessen would want to be thought well of by the world (as Paul instructed Timothy).
Thiessen will call me names and say I’m lying. I suspect most readers will think otherwise (except Revival Fires 🔥 and his ilk).
I’ve been checking the etiquette for providing the source of a qualification such as a doctorate and there doesn’t seem to be much said about it. I think it’s common courtesy for someone claiming a doctorate, especially non medical, as part of a ‘public’ persona to provide some details. YouTube profiles usually say where someone studied, and in the UK (I’m guessing it’s likely the same in the US), it’s the convention to include the name of your university after the degree (for example, I’m LLB (Lond), though I never ever use it in any context these days). Failure to provide it when challenged isn’t just suspicious, it’s downright dishonest.
Americans rarely put their titles even on business cards. I don’t think its common to put the source of one’s Phd on a business card in the UK either – unless you are showing off you went to Oxbridge
So, if you take away all the evidence, then you have no evidence ?
well, durr.
I find the Christian, and the myriad of religous/supernatural/creationist/heathen explainers, to have rather fanciful if not exotic explainations/stories to provide their fellows some type of context to the realities of the world.
A universe sitting on turtle shells, the Norse mythologies, those from the Bronze and Iron Ages and so forth.
The New Testament, for 1,400 years, helped people deal with the awesome power of our Earth and Solar System, although in rather abbreviated form.
I will continue to repeat my mantra that I find these stories an attempt to explain that which could not be explained at the time. I have no doubt those that came before us were mystified, terrified and intimidated by nature. It’s terrifying today, even with science to help explain things. (I think Science has far to go to really helping our species understand more fully what this cosmic existence is all about). In fact I think we are just now scratching the surface.
Personally I have found the current scientific findings (to date) to provide an even more satisfying, and elegant, description of “creation” than religous works.
It’s truly mind boggling how every aspect of Homo-Sapien evolution has been determined by adaptation to the environment. Just the case of the introduction of Oxygen into the Oceans and the Atmosphere is a stunning, and for me, unequivocable proof that we are an evolved species, Uniquely adapted to our very special “Pale Blue Dot”.
It’s still fascinating to me how young earth creationist or other science denialists (flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, etc) depend on the findings of science for the operation of their daily lives, but will puck one small segment of science to say, “No, that’s wrong” and generally will assign some vast conspiracy theory as to why they don’t trust it. They’ll fly in an airplane, use a cell phone, turn on air conditioning, use their refrigerator, drive a car, and do literally hundreds of tasks a day that depend on scientific discovery and advancement. But they’ll die on the hill of whatever it is they want to deny. It’s fascinating. I remember the cognitive dissonance of it when I was in the fundamentalist evangelical bubble.
“Also, we have not seen one person adapt to the environment on the moon or in space.”
Unlike Jesus, who was last seen from earth heading in that direction.
The more I read of this “Tee” character, the more he reminds me of the galoot my cousin married: He’s big and loud and when anyone says something that proves him wrong, or simply disagrees with them, he talks over them. And, as often as not, what he says misses the point completely.
I have more respect for him, however, because he has never abandoned his family or claimed to have academic credentials he doesn’t have—or ones that are more legitimate than what he has.