Subject: Re: Creationism (was Re: "With All That You Acquire, Acquire
Understanding")
Date: 13 Jan 2000 22:18:12 GMT
From: Chris Ho-Stuart <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

Darren R Middleton <> wrote:
> Sean McHugh wrote in message <387902D3.41FA950>...
>
> G'day,
> Just a quick remark Sean.
>
> I was skimming your post when I came across your comments & quote below.
> I have often seen this much repeated claim (I think Chris may have said
> something similar recently) and it seems to be nothing more than a
> pathetic attempt at securing the intellectual high ground.
>
> Furthermore, why would you imply that virtually no YEC have qualifications
> in anything other than engineering, particularly when you seem to draw
> your support from Danny who admits he is _not_ an authority?

For the record... I have spoken up on occassions (in talk.origins)
to point out that some creationists do have legitimate mainstream
qualifications in relevant fields. Duane Gish, for example, has
a PhD in biochemistry from Berkeley.

I note for the record that despite this qualification, Dr Gish is
an example of a creationist who is easily shown to be dishonest
and incompetant with his sources and information, biochemical
information most emphatically included.

This observation is a slur on Dr Gish alone.

This example serves to show that mere possesion of a PhD, even
from a good university in a directly relevant field, does not
actually tell you a great deal.

I chose Dr Gish simply because I knew the details of his PhD straight
away. Off the top of my head I can name names (Kurt Wise, Andrew
Snelling, Don Batten) where I am reasonably certain that a quick
background check would confirm similar mainstream and directly relevant
qualifications. There are bound to be quite a number of others.

I have always said, creationist writings stand or fall on their
merits, and nothing else. Furthermore, they stand or fall on an
individual basis. Discreditting Gish does not invalidate Morris;
and showing that one paper is worthless does not demonstrate that
the next one will be as well.

That being said, there is a general trend apparent which does not
inspire confidence.

I would urge caution to Darren or others on the subject of
creationists. There are a lot of crank pseudo-scientists around,
of all stripes. The Velikovsky followers; various folk who pop
up to disprove Einstein; strange cosmologies; astrologers, etc.
A PhD is no insulation against this kind of thing.

Creationists are not a homogenous group within this circus. There
are many stripes of creationist as well, and purely by citing
creationist sources we could almost certainly pit PhD against PhD.

The bible has this in common with science: it is a rich source
of ideas and spin-offs for crank theorists of all kinds.

You should not trust someone just because they wave the bible.
You should not trust someone just because they have a PhD.
You should even not trust someone just because they have an
line of argument which supports a conclusion that you approve
of by other means.

You should base your trust on a considered examination of the
actual arguments themselves; and you would be very well advised
to double check their information (I say from experience).

Darren has been caught out himself by me in this group; as I hope
he might acknowledge with his customary grace.

For anyone: if the *real* basis of your beliefs is considered
examination of some other line of evidence -- such a reliance
directly on the bible alone -- then it would be wise to leave
the creationists out of it all together.

I assert on my own authority, on the basis of a long familiarity
with the literature and experience in discussion with creationists
of all stripes, and case by case examination of a huge number of
creationist arguments, that scientific creationism is riddled from
top to bottom with absurdity; and there are excellent reasons why
creationism is not taken seriously in the scientific mainstream.
It is, in fact, a complete non-issue.

Now, despite my own PhD, I do not expect Darren or anyone to
immediately accept my word on this, just as I would hope they
do not immediately accept the word of creationist PhDs either.

I do not mind someone who is not familiar with the literature
choosing to suspend judgement.

For those who want to explore the subject, I am quite uninterested
in indirect demonstrations of the worth of creationists by virtue
of qualifications. I want examples of creationist arguments which
I may not have seen that someone thinks might actually make sense.

(For the record, my own PhD is computer science, and not directly
relevant except possibly for the "information theory" absurdity
proposed by the creationist Professor Dr Werner Gitt, and others.)

>>I do note that Morris' qualification is
>>in geological _engineering_. I concede to not knowing in exactly what
>>ways this differs. Perhaps someone else can assist. Anyway, here is
>>reply to my email, from Danny Yee:
>>
>>: Creationists seem to be most common in engineering departments - they
>>: are pretty much non-existent in natural history departments, at least
>>: in respectable universities.

On the matter of Engineering... there has been a bit of a trend
observed in creationist Engineers. This started, to the best of
my knowledge, as a bit of the acerbic humour (see "Salem hypothesis").
However, it appears to have taken on a life of its own. I would advise
Danny, Sean and others not to make too much of it. I am not personally
aware of any careful empirical support for such a statistic; though I
would be happy to be shown incorrect in this.

I am pretty sure that Danny is correct to say that creationists
are very rare in history departments; likewise in biology, geology
and astronomy departments. Literal believers in the origins of
language at the Tower of Babel are likely to be under-represented
in linguistic departments. Etc.

However, I cannot substantiate that. Even if it could be
substantiated, the predicatable response is that this is due to the
deliberate exclusion, or due to the fact that those fields are not
fair and honest in examination of the evidence and so a creationist
researcher will tend to seek out more reliable centers of learning.

The facts at issue concerning creationism need to be considered
directly. I have no great confidence in assertions or speculation
from those who are unwilling or unable to engage in debate on the
substantive matters. I remain willing and able to engage in such
debate with those who would like the opportunity; and sympathetic
to those who would prefer not to engage directly on the substance
for whatever reason.

>>I will add that I asked him if I could post it and he said:
>>
>>: Go for it - but I'm hardly an authority! (Though I guess I've had a
>>: fair bit experience in one university.)
>
> Try reading J.F Ashton PhD "In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose To
> Believe In Creation"
> BTW, all have a PhD.

If you have this book on hand, I would be interested to see
a list showing where each PhD was obtained, and in what field.

However, to really say anything about proportions of creationists
in different fields we would need a proper statistical experiment
with careful sampling protocols, null hypothesis, etc.

Best wishes -- Chris