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Carl Wieland

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Carl Wieland is an Australian young earth creationist, author, and speaker. He is Managing Director of Creation Ministries International (formerly Answers in Genesis - Australia), a Christian apologetics ministry. He is also CEO of Answers in Genesis International.[1]

In 1978, Wieland founded the family-oriented, evangelical magazine Ex Nihilo (later called Creation Ex Nihilo, and now called simply Creation)[2]. Creation magazine is produced in the CMI Australia office in Brisbane.

Wieland is a medical doctor by training, and is a past-president of the Christian Medical Fellowship of South Australia. He stopped practising in 1986, after a "head-on impact with a fully laden fuel tanker at highway speeds" [3] in 1986. Despite 5 ½ months in hospital and more than 50 surgeries, he maintains an active speaking schedule,[4] as well as editing Creation magazine and running the CMI Australia offices. Wieland's ordeal is outlined in his book, [[Walking Through Shadows].

Controversy and criticism

Dr. Gary S. Hurd wrote that "Carl Wieland is the major creationist 'dino-blood' source and has presented his distorted interpretations of dinosaur biomolecule research through the Answers in Genesis Ministry: Creation Ex Nihilo."[5] Hurd argued in two pages of that work "Wieland has shifted from 'fossil bones' to 'unfossilized dinosaur bone' and claims that a popularized account of one paleontological study is reason enough to abandon the sciences."[6] The source for Wieland's "entire claim of cellular preservation in dinosaur age fossils originated from a selective misrepresentation of a popular magazine account of research by Mary Schweitzer titled The Real Jurassic Park."[7] Hurd noted "this article was published in 1997 by a magazine called Earth, a for-profit magazine focused on geology and paleontology for the general public. The magazine folded after three volumes," which "the former Editor, Josh Flishman, has personally acknowledged to me that Earth was a popularization, and not a scientific journal."[8]

Hurd went on to debunk Wieland's claims noting the article's "lack of permineralization (the infilling of the intravascular spaces with minerals, and recrystalization of the bone mineral itself)" of residual blood products "is the reason that Schweitzer could loosely refer to the bone as 'not completely fossilized' in The Real Jurassic Park."[9] It was this claim that "Wieland grossly exaggerates... as 'unfossilized'. [1997: pg. 42]"[10] Hurd explained "all the analysis published in the science literature by Mary H. Schweitzer and her colleagues through 1997 demonstrate that they have found a very well preserved bone that had little or no water penetration into the core area from where they drew their biomolecule samples."[11]

Hurd noted "Schweitzer has told me that she was very surprised that the creationists would latch on to her work like this, as hers is not the oldest reported biomolecule data."[12] Rather, Hurd explained"there were prior publications of DNA extracted from samples twice as old as her T. rex sample (for example Polinar et al. 1994)."[13] Hurd concludes that "there were also prior reports of immunological responses from biomolecules extracted from dinosaur bone, for example Muyzer et al. 1992."[14]

Two years later Wieland "returned to his misrepresentation of the Schweitzer research in Dinosaur bones: Just how old are they really?"[15] Hurd cited Wieland as an exampe of "the false, or out-of-context quote is a favorite tactic of professional young Earth creationists' efforts to undermine science and reason."[16] Hurd explained that "the only reason that Schweitzer's work should be so corrupted by creationists is her news interviews that mentioned 'cells'" because "cells, in the popular imagination, could be thought of as necessarily recent or "fresh" features."[17]

Books

  • Dragons Of The Deep: Ocean Monsters Past And Present (2005)
  • The Genesis Files: Meet 22 Modern Day Scientists Who Believe in a Six-Day Recent Creation (edited, 2004)
  • 101 Signs of Design: Timeless Truths from Science (2002)
  • Walking Through Shadows, with Ken Ham (2002)
  • One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism, with Ken Ham and Don Batten (1999)
  • Stones and Bones: Powerful Evidence Against Evolution (1996)
  • The Answers Book: Detailed Answers at Layman's Level to 12 of the Most Asked Questions on Creation/evolution (1992)
  • The Answers Book, with Ken Ham, Don Batten, and Jonathan Sarfati (1990)
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