Creationist Fred Williams' Web Site Lies

I don't know how it is I somehow always end up being the one defending Fred Williams here, but here I go again. I'm actually very fond of Fred. I find him adorable. He's a real interesting read, he's persistent, he's resourceful. I also think he's woefully self-deluded, and his debate style involves every kind of annoying fallacy, but it's part of his charm. Fred probably doesn't deserve this, but I see no reason why evolutionists should open themselves up to the same types of charges we level at Fred, and so I think criticism's of Fred should be fair and accurate. In that vein, I offer this thorough and complete defense of Fred on the issues mentioned by Budikka:

Budikka writes:

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Try this: go to Williams' site (notice the .COM, not .ORG - this is a commercial site), and type the word "science" into his cheesey "search engine". This is the reply you will get: "Sorry, there are no matches for science on this site." ...etc...

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I don't think Fred's website should be judged by the quality of his search engine. I certainly hope no one judges this website using such a criteria. (New search engine for messages coming around Thanksgiving - thorough and powerful).That ends my defense of Fred!--Percy

That's just so precious it's hard to believe it's true! Wow, talk about being caught with your hand in the cookie jar! We'll have to try to remember to ask Fred about this the next time he checks in here.I'm curious about what happened over at the OCW board. How does a board get highjacked? As you might imagine, I have a more than passing interest in the answer...--Percy

OCW hosts with Christian Web Host, Inc. Boy, they have great rates! Was OCW a reliable site, accessible all the time and so forth? Maybe we'll switch over there! Anyway, in general, whoever pays the monthly bill has control because he has the password for creating, editing and deleting files, and for ftp'ing data in and out of the site. Perhaps, once his privileges were taken away, he didn't know how to backdoor the bulletin board software to restore his privileges. But I guess he must have figured it out eventually.--Percy

Losing all data is consistent with deleting all files at the website and reinitializing it by uploading a fresh copy of the bulletin board software. Sort of the same as being locked out of your house by a bunch of bullies and gaining entrance by burning it down and rebuilding it. I wonder if that's what he did. It'd be a pretty desperate measure.--Percy

wwjd writes: Why not try this on for size. ​ "...Carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results..." ​ Harvey Rowe (Smithsonian Institute) Curator, Antiquities ​ This having been said when the head of a chewed up barbie doll was found buy some guy who likes to dig in his back yard and decided to send his findings to the Smithsonian Institute to have it carbon dated.

How 'bout you try this on for size (following quotes are from Smithsonian Barbie | Snopes.com):

• This tongue-in-cheek "letter" has been entertaining netizens since its November 1995 debut in the USENET newsgroup rec.humor.funny. It caught on quickly; within the space of a month what was clearly a humor post was being forwarded in e-mail as factual.
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• Harvey Rowe of the Smithsonian doesn't exist.
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• The Smithsonian doesn't have an antiquities department.
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• There's also no hopeful backyard paleontologist busily excavating the land around his clothesline and implacably sending specimen after bogus specimen off to the Smithsonian. That too is fabrication.

The gullibility of some people! Geesh!--Percy

If you go to this page of the Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory:radiocarbon WEB-infoYou'll see a lot of links at the top. After reading through these links you'll have a much better understanding not only of how C14 data works, but also of the sources of inaccuracy and how they are managed. You'll also see that it bears little resemblance to what you've been told.--Percy