This is the title of a newspaper commentary column [1] that I stumbled onto recently. It was less annoying than I thought it would be. The “New Facts” turn out to be mainly the testimony of Ken Ham’s Creation Museum (Here’s my earlier post about that [2]).
One gripe I have is the idea of testimony as evidence. This is a very human concept, the basis of legal evidence, and anathema to good science. In science, testimony is merely a claim of observation intended to lead others to be able to repeat the observation. Furthermore, in science an observation is meaningless unless it can be objectively measured with unimpeachable instruments.
Author Tom McVeety brings up a couple of measurable data tidbits free from their context, but responders to his column neatly provide the missing framework for some, and politely attack the innumeracy obvious in others.
It is worthwhile to read many of the comments to the column. Among other threads, they get into a clash between Christian denominations that accept scientific conclusions, and those that deny science when it disagrees with a particular narrow interpretation of the Bible.
Just for grins, here’s a rebuttal [3] on BadAstronomy.com
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