I have been disheartened by the recent debate regarding the climate change e-mails. Not because of the rampant falsehoods exposed through the e-mails’ publication, for the Lord will punish those scientists who do not heed his admonishment according to Exodus 23:1, “Thou shall not raise a false report.”

What is of particular annoyance to me is the lack of sources on the climate change skeptics’ side. I’ve read numerous articles about the e-mails and they often repeat the same quotes like, “We can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” But what is the source of these quotes? Where can I read these emails? Skeptics of climate change are not the only ones to falter on the issue of proper citation.

It is not hard to source the truth. Verily, the truth is the easiest thing to cite properly because of its self-evident, easy to understand nature. Even the letters of the word “truth” bear witness to its factual purity. Truth begins with the letter t, the shape of which should give an unambiguous clue to who – or should I say Who? – is the source of truth.

In Latin, the word for truth is “veritas,” beginning with a V for Victory. Namely, the victory of truth. The word “cite” rhymes with “sight,” which describes what we can see with our own eyes unaided by telescopes or microscopes or other boundaries to our understanding. All of this is self-evident.

The website for the Institute of Creation Research (ICR), www.icr.org, is a veritable library of sources concerning the field of creationism. Creationism is a skeptic’s discipline in opposition to the prevailing scientific field of evolution, a field which had me enraptured for quite some time.

But in grade school, we are taught not by scientists but by textbooks. Textbook authors are not motivated by truth. Instead, they are motivated by what sells, which is the science of evolution. So we as children were not taught but instead sold an idea.

Did you know that only God could have created cells? Courtesy of the ICR, this is my proof: “The higher the number of specifications required for life, the lower the probability that life could have arisen through random, undirected forces. The actual number of specifications now known is so high that there is no reasonable doubt that life must have been engineered by a perceptive power that exists beyond natural laws. Since natural entities cannot account for life, a supernatural entity must.”

Was that so hard, journalists and columnists of America? I made a claim, cited my source, and also included a snippet of my evidence. My column is now beyond reproach, passing the boundary of polemic and becoming an argument. You don’t need to get a masters of science in creation research, which is incidentally offered by the ICR’s affiliated graduate school, to understand the basic facts.

Because the Earth is so much more than the nine – or eight planets – it must have been caused by God. For instance, “The earth’s 365-day, 6-hour, 49-minute and 9.54-second trip around the sun (the sidereal year) is consistent to over a thousandth of a second,” and, “If the yearly average temperature on earth’s surface changed by only a few degrees or so, much of the life on it would eventually roast or freeze.”

Supernatural forces are necessary to overcome the loss of energy in Earth’s orbital velocity and its temperature, ergo God helps out.

In fact, the recent demotion of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet is probably another example of the scientists playing with the numbers. If Earth is one of nine planets, or one-ninth, then the percentage of planets supporting life in the Solar System is 11.11 percent. Scientists inflate the likelihood of habitable planets by reducing the amount of planets to eight so that one-eighth of the planets, or 12.5 percent, now support life.

A recent column in our own Daily Collegian quoted a global warming scientist saying how he added or subtracted numbers from temperatures. Now we have scientists adding and subtracting entire planets from the universe just to further their profitable agendas. When will such peer-revised deception stop passing as a standard model of the world? And when will our men and women of letters, in college or metropolitan newspapers, not only express skepticism but back up their own claims with solid evidence?

Chris Amorosi is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].