51 scientific facts that disprove the Bible

In the Why so friggin' confident? various spin-off threads have been proposed. There is definite interest in this one. Bertot claimed in Message 333 of that thread. I Googled it out of interest. It seems to be a 'fact' touted by evangelicals and their brethren, but nobody seems to be able to name these fifty one facts, the claim usually goes:

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"In the year 1861 the French Academy of Science published a list of fifty-one so-called scientific facts, each of which, it was alleged, disproved some statement in the Bible. Today the Bible remains as it was then, but not one of those fifty-one so-called facts is held by men of science."

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The spirit of the claim is no doubt true: science does not have dogma and changes its views as evidence roles in whereas the Bible doesn't change - only its interpretation by its readers. Is the claim itself actually true? What are these facts? If it is true, does it support the strong claim that the Bible is eternally TRUE whereas as science is only temporally 'true'?If anybody can track them down, that would be great. A poster on this newsgroup claims to have spoken with the French Academy of Sciences and received the {translated} response of:

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We did not find in the tables of the Reports of the Academy of Science in 1861 the existence of such a list. Nothing makes it possible to affirm that this list existed.

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Is this one of those religious urban legends that keep circulating because the people that pass it on simply believe (with a high degree of confidence) that it is fact based on what turns out to be highly spurious grounds?I'd say this is one for The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy.

If those suspicions are true, I'm sure it should be trivial enough to track down the chirping crickets - that is what crows eat isn't it?To maintain topic integrity, I have managed to track down an early version of this claim:

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In the year 1861 the French Academy of Science published a list of fifty-one so-called scientific facts, each of which, it was alleged, disproved some statement in the Bible. Today the Bible remains as it was then, but not one of those fifty-one so-called facts is held by men of science. Distinction should always be made between the speculations in the realm of science and its clearly proven facts. The speculations of science are like the shifting currents of the sea, while the Scriptures have breasted them like the rock of Gibralter for two thousand years. The Bible has not been shown to contradict so much as one proven fact of science; on the contrary the account which it presents of the origin and order of the world, as contrasted with that found in other ancient books, corresponds with the findings of modern science to a degree that is perfectly marvelous. The conflict which some people suppose to exist between the Bible and science simply does not exist.

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Loraine Boettner, first in a series of articles in a magazine in the 30s, followed by a book in the 1940s. The full article with the quote can be found here. There are some fun additional quotes in there like

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Organic evolution, for instance, as it is usually set forth, rules out the supernatural and contradicts the Bible. But it must be remembered that organic evolution is not science, but only a theory, an hypothesis. Not one of the five arguments usually advanced to support it is sound, and many distinguished scientists do not believe in the theory of organic evolution but in fiat creation as taught in the Bible.

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A minister who has not studied science has no right to invade the domain of science and speak freely about it.

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Do you think he even noticed how he managed to contradict himself there?

Are we up to 30?31) The higher you go, the thinner things get until there is only vacuum. There is no firmament capable of holding back the primeval waters, nor has there ever been.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Are you suggesting that this means the Bible has changed?Or are you suggesting that this is evidence that science never updates its ideas as new evidence rolls in?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

You seem to have dived into the deep end a little. I didn't use the word 'dogmatic' I used the word 'dogma'. So if you want to think I was alleging that the Bible is dogmatic you should have used the primary definition of dogmatic which, in that same dictionary is "Relating to, characteristic of, or resulting from dogma." Dogma is defined

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1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.
2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See synonyms at doctrine.

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I was using it to mean something akin to the more general definition laid out in (2). I did this because, well look at the quote I was referring to:

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Today the Bible remains as it was then, but not one of those fifty-one so-called facts is held by men of science."

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I took the spirit of this claim and realised it was largely true. The Bible hasn't changed, the claims laid out in it are the same today as they were three hundred years ago. The claims of science have changed. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Preposterous. These people are materialistic linguists with an agenda. I've never seen a French verb turn into a Spanish Noun. You can wait 4,000 years if you want and it'll never happen.As if finding evidence of common ancestry is evidence that languages have changed so that German can become Indian! Nonsense and silliness. How can we teach this to our kids? You know that 200 years ago linguists said some things which today no modern linguist will defend??? Anybody can make a family tree of anything. I can make a family tree so that Navajo is the brother of English - it doesn't mean anything. What if I made a family tree of cutlery? Would that prove that a fork can turn into a spoon? Why do lingualutionists always rely on baseless assertions - this just shows them for what they are! Undocumented indeed! How do they know then?And where do these lingualutionists think that languages came from in the first place? How can they have any 'so-called theory of lingual common ancestry' until they have observed a new language springing into existence in a labarotory? And even then - how would they know that that happened in history - we can't observe history!!!!!Actually, that was kind of fun, I can see why evolution deniers do it now: I didn't have to waste any time checking my post was consistent with those pesky facts.