Jonathan D. Sarfati (born October 1, 1964) is an Australian writer and researcher who works for Creation Ministries International (CMI), formerly part of Answers in Genesis (AiG), a non-profit Christian apologetics ministry specializing in Young-Earth creationism. He is the author of Creation science articles and three books on the subject; Refuting Evolution (1999), Refuting Evolution 2 (2002), and Refuting Compromise (2004). His forthcoming book is Rescuing the Bible from John Shelby Spong, co-authored with Michael Bott.A FIDE Master in chess, he achieved a draw against former world champion Boris Spassky during a tournament in Wellington in 1988, and was New Zealand's national chess champion in 1987-8, representing that country in Chess Olympiads in 1986, 1988, and 1992.He has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.BackgroundBorn in Ararat, Victoria, Sarfati moved with his family to New Zealand as a child, where he became a dual national. He attended Wellington College in New Zealand, later graduating from Victoria University of Wellington with a B.Sc. (Hons.) in chemistry, and a Ph.D. in the same subject for a thesis entitled "A Spectroscopic Study of some Chalcogenide Ring and Cage Molecules."He co-authored a paper on high-temperature superconductors that was published in Nature in 1987 ("Letters to Nature"), and from 1988 to 1995, had several papers on spectroscopy of condensed matter samples published in other peer-reviewed scientific journals.In 1996, he returned to Brisbane, Australia to work for the Creation Science Foundation, then Answers in Genesis and now Creation Ministries International, as co-editor of their magazine, Creation, and their technical journal, Journal of Creation (formerly TJ).Gary Bates, promoting Sarfati on a creationist website, says:"Sarfati means Frenchman in Hebrew. Despite having no religious upbringing, Jonathan was driven to investigate his Jewish roots after his conversion. As a Messianic Jew, he has also passionately imbibed knowledge about church history and theological issues." Writings and criticismReligion and scienceAccording to the Answers in Genesis website, Sarfati was a founder of the Wellington Christian Apologetics Society in New Zealand, and has long retained an interest in Christian apologetics and the creationism versus evolution debate.His first two books, Refuting Evolution in 1999, and Refuting Evolution 2 in 2002, are rebuttals to the National Academy of Sciences' publication Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science and the PBS/Nova series "Evolution," respectively. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education described Refuting Evolution 2 as a "crude piece of propaganda," and expressed concern that there are no serious rebuttals of it, arguing that "its shoddiness is no excuse for complacency on the part of the scientific community."Refuting Compromise, published in 2004, is Sarfati's rebuttal of the day-age creationist teachings of Dr. Hugh Ross, who attempts to harmonize the Genesis account of creation with modern science regarding the age of the earth and the possible size of the "Flood," against which Sarfati defends a literal biblical timeline and a global flood.Sarfati's writing covers a wide range of topics both within and outside his areas of formal training.Discussing astronomy, for example, he writes that the remains of supernovae and distribution of comets, can provide explanations consistent with the universe having been created 6,000 years ago. On biology, he argues that all the animals required in Genesis to fit into Noah's Ark, including dinosaurs, would have been able to do so. He also argues that vestigial organs may have an unknown purpose, or that their existence would be explained by the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.He has written in the general field of chemistry criticising evolutionary origin of life theories, pointing out what he considers difficulties in chemical evolution, such as polymerization, chirality, instability of building blocks and the origin of self-reproduction.Sarfati has been criticized for the wide range of subjects he discusses. On the Talkorigins.org web site, Reed A. Cartwright and Dr Douglas L. Theobald have commented on Sarfati's views on vestigial organs, noting that his doctorate was in physical chemistry, not biology and that his understanding of vestigial organs is lacking. Sarfati himself has criticised some of his opponents for their lack of appropriate credentials, noting of one researcher, that he was an anthropologist, and therefore "anything he says about radiometric dating should be taken with a large grain of salt." It is widely believed that Sarfati posts at TheologyWeb and other online forums using the screen name "Socrates." Religion and moralsSarfati says: "Right throughout Scripture, murder — that is the intentional killing of innocent humans — is regarded as a heinous sin (Exodus 20:13, Matthew 19:18, Romans 13:9). Since abortion kills an innocent human being, it is nothing less than murder. So all the usual 'hard cases' pushed by pro-abortionists, e.g. 'What if the woman was raped?', 'What if the child is deformed?', 'What if she can't afford to keep the child?' are completely irrelevant. We should also remember Ezekiel 18:20, which prohibits executing a child for the crime of his/her father — this means that even the tragic cases of pregnancies due to incest or rape are no justification for killing the innocent child conceived." He has argued that "the Bible speaks against racism regardless of any way in which people have misused it." He defends marriage as an institution joining one man and one woman, and opposes polygamy. He opposes homosexual behaviour, while advocating "love the sinner, hate the sin." He has endorsed Bernard Goldberg's suggestion that Roman Catholic priests who molest teenage boys should be called "gay priests" rather than "pedophile priests." In the same article, he used the terms "homonazis" and "sodomofascist" to refer to gays who advocate the imprisonment of pastors for calling homosexual acts sinful:"Homosexuals are now a politically protected victim group, about which it is verboten to say anything negative. And certain homonazis want Christians punished if they quote from the Bible against homosexual behavior. Indeed, 63-year-old Pastor Åke Greenh was jailed in Sweden for just that, because they have such a sodomofascist law restricting Christian freedom. Fortunately his conviction was overturned on appeal, to the ire of homosexual activists, by a higher court because it was such an egregious violation of Sweden's free speech laws." ChessSarfati playing blindfold chess at 12 boards simultaneouslyA New Zealand national chess champion in 1987-8, he represented New Zealand in three Chess Olympiads: the 27th in Dubai in 1986, the 28th in Thessaloniki in 1988, and the 30th in Manila in 1992. He also tied Rey Casse in the Australian Junior Championship in 1981, but was not eligible to share the title because he was a resident of New Zealand at the time.He is currently the club captain/director-of-play for the Logan City Chess Club, Australia. He is known for giving blindfold chess exhibits at creationist conferences and chess clubs, and has played twelve such games simultaneously.His previous best was winning 11/11 at the Kapiti Chess Club in New Zealand. |