Are there actually creationists who are scientists?

[Cainkane1]

I've read creationist posts that say that true blue scientists are actually pushing creationism as an actual scientific explanation as to how the earth was formed and how living things came about. I mean did these so called scientists go to university and take the courses and get an actual degree in science? Biologists?
Anthropologists? etc? If the answer is yes thaen give me a few names. I've read that some biology students refuse to take a class taught by a creationist.

 

[JoeEllison]

I've read creationist posts that say that true blue scientists are actually pushing creationism as an actual scientific explanation as to how the earth was formed and how living things came about. I mean did these so called scientists go to university and take the courses and get an actual degree in science? Biologists?
Anthropologists? etc? If the answer is yes thaen give me a few names. I've read that some biology students refuse to take a class taught by a creationist.

There are a very tiny handful of creationists in the sciences, only a few of which are biologists. 99.9999% of scientists are absolutely not creationists in the sense of "pushing creationism as an actual scientific explanation as to how the earth was formed and how living things came about." There are plenty of religious people who are also scientists, and see their deity or deities as being ultimately responsible for the universe, but pretty much none of them buy into a literal reading of their myth as being at all scientifically accurate.

 

[Meadmaker]

I've read creationist posts that say that true blue scientists are actually pushing creationism as an actual scientific explanation as to how the earth was formed and how living things came about. I mean did these so called scientists go to university and take the courses and get an actual degree in science? Biologists?
Anthropologists? etc? If the answer is yes thaen give me a few names. I've read that some biology students refuse to take a class taught by a creationist.

The most commonly cited name is Michael Behe. He's a proponent of intelligent design*, and a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University. He has published quite a few papers on biochemistry and no one would question him as a legitimate scientist, although several have noted that his publication record was much more impressive back before he got involved in ID. He has one publication in an academic journal that kinda, maybe, a little bit, hints at ID.

Richard Gentner, (I think I have the name right) a geologist, once got a paper published in a respected scientific journal despite the fact that it promoted a young Earth model. (I believe this was in 1987.) After publication, alternative explanations for the data published flooded in, which used an old earth model. The subject was "Polonium Halos". At the time, I had a subscription to Skeptical Inquirer, and read about it there.

There are occaisionally stories of people who have creationist teachers in subjects which either don't relate to or don't require any comprehension of evolution. There's really quite a lot you can know about such fields as biology or medicine despite the fact that you don't believe in evolution.

For the most part, though, the "real scientists" who are alleged to support creationism, are phantoms, cranks, or people who studied fields that have nothing to do with evolution. It's no coincidence that a lot of prominent ID supporters and creationists are in my own chosen profession, engineering. My colleagues are drawn to making gizmos, and they think God does the same.


*(Intelligent Design is not actually creationism, no matter what you will hear on this forum, but it is very, very, close. Behe does not believe in the young earth, and he does believe that all organisms on Earth were descended from common ancestors. However, he thinks it couldn't have happened without God's help, manipulating the process of evolution using miraculous intervention.)

 

[JoeEllison]

*(Intelligent Design is not actually creationism, no matter what you will hear on this forum, but it is very, very, close. Behe does not believe in the young earth, and he does believe that all organisms on Earth were descended from common ancestors. However, he thinks it couldn't have happened without God's help, manipulating the process of evolution using miraculous intervention.)

Oh yeah, it is absolutely creationism. Follow the money!

 

[Meadmaker]

Oh yeah, it is absolutely creationism. Follow the money!

You might say that there isn't two cents worth of difference, eh?


(And Joe has hit the nail on the head. Technically, the two are different, but they are supported by the same people and for the same reason.)

 

[JoeEllison]

You might say that there isn't two cents worth of difference, eh?


(And Joe has hit the nail on the head. Technically, the two are different, but they are supported by the same people and for the same reason.)

Really, it is just another place where we can look outside the fundamentalist movement and point out their incredible dishonesty. They don't even really believe in ID, but they pretend that they do in order to try to sneak their religious beliefs into classrooms. When you corner them on their beliefs, most of them will admit that they are really creationists of the "young earth" variety.

 

[Cainkane1]

Well there is a such thing as theistic evolutionists and I guess religious scientists are of that school of thought.

 

[CFLarsen]

The most commonly cited name is Michael Behe. He's a proponent of intelligent design*, and a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University. He has published quite a few papers on biochemistry and no one would question him as a legitimate scientist, although several have noted that his publication record was much more impressive back before he got involved in ID. He has one publication in an academic journal that kinda, maybe, a little bit, hints at ID.

To get an idea of what kind of "science" Behe uses when he describes Intelligent Design, we need to look no further than Kitzmiller v. Dover. Behe had, while being cross-examined, to admit that the definition was so loose that it would also mean that astrology would qualify as "science".

If someone want to point to Behe as a scientist who makes a scientific argument in favor of Intelligent Design, they are also arguing that astrology is science.

*(Intelligent Design is not actually creationism, no matter what you will hear on this forum, but it is very, very, close. Behe does not believe in the young earth, and he does believe that all organisms on Earth were descended from common ancestors. However, he thinks it couldn't have happened without God's help, manipulating the process of evolution using miraculous intervention.)

Nonsense. Intelligent Design is nothing else than Creationism in disguise. There are many forms of Creationism (Day-age creationism, Gap creationism, Old Earth creationism, Progressive creationism, Theistic evolution, Young Earth creationism), but all of them require an interventionist God.

Also, the most prominent advocates of ID admit that they think the "designer" is God.

 

[Meadmaker]

Nonsense. Intelligent Design is nothing else than Creationism in disguise.

 

[JJM]

ID is creationism. Its science-adherents have confused themselves into thinking that a "designer" is different from a "creator."

There are two very good books on this topic:
The Tower of Babel by Pennock http://www.amazon.com/Tower-Babel-E...0948863?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185731760&sr=1-1
Creationism's Trojan Horse by Forrest and Gross http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/019531...&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=288448401&pf_rd_i=507846

As for what Behe believes, only he knows. He is smart-enough to know what to say to try maintain some semblance of credibility. What came out at the Dover* trial is that he worked with a purely creationist publisher, 20 years ago, to produce a purely creationist text (Of People and Pandas).

I am told Behe also wrote a silly booklet claiming that there is no fossil evidence showing the evolution of land mammals to whales. (Twenty years ago, that was true; it is not true today.) I think a biochemist writing a misleading book about paleontology is promoting creationism. (The book is silly and misleading because "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.")

Concerning the OP. There is no rush of scientists wanting to promote ID. That is wishful thinking on the part of the creationists.

*This is variously known as Dover, Kitzmiller vs. somebody, or the Panda trial.

 

[Bob Klase]

*(Intelligent Design is not actually creationism, no matter what you will hear on this forum, but it is very, very, close. Behe does not believe in the young earth

There are many creationists who don't necessarily believe in the young earth. That doesn't make them not-creationists. If they all believe that god created the universe in 7 days then it makes no difference if he did it 6000 years ago or 14 billion years ago.

 

[Hawk one]

What came out at the Dover* trial is that he worked with a purely creationist publisher, 20 years ago, to produce a purely creationist text (Of People and Pandas).

It was "Of Pandas and People", but that's not the point I'm going to make here, but instead offer some food for thought to Meadmaker:

See, there is a very interesting fact about this book. It was originally a pure creationist book, with phrases like "creator" and the likes in the earlier drafts. Then the Edwards v. Aguillard decision deemed correctly that "creation science" was indeed religious instead of science, and should be kept out of the science classroom.

And then this book was rewritten. Well, sort of. See, basically the only thing they changed was to replace the phrase "creator" with "intelligent designer". That was it. Nothing more of any substance.

 

[JJM]

There are many creationists who don't necessarily believe in the young earth. That doesn't make them not-creationists. If they all believe that god created the universe in 7 days then it makes no difference if he did it 6000 years ago or 14 billion years ago.

Yes, and that is the subject of the Pennock book I recommended a few posts ago.

Briefly, there are creationists who believe in a strict reading of scripture. There are those who think the "day" is an unspecified time period. Then, there are are those who think the days (24 hours, or, unspecified) may be separated by very long expanses of unaccounted time. Perhaps there are more subgroups I have forgotten.

Pennock points out how they all unite behind ID, while engaging in acrimonious arguments behind the scenes.

 

[Diamond]

Richard Gentner, (I think I have the name right) a geologist, once got a paper published in a respected scientific journal despite the fact that it promoted a young Earth model. (I believe this was in 1987.) After publication, alternative explanations for the data published flooded in, which used an old earth model. The subject was "Polonium Halos". At the time, I had a subscription to Skeptical Inquirer, and read about it there.

I think you're referring to Robert Gentry*


*PS I am horrifed to discover that there is no biography of the man in Encyclopedia Britannica, which is why I use Wikipedia (but be careful of the NPOV)

 

[CFLarsen]

Explain the difference, then.

 

[jimbob]

There are many creationists who don't necessarily believe in the young earth. That doesn't make them not-creationists. If they all believe that god created the universe in 7 days then it makes no difference if he did it 6000 years ago or 14 billion years ago.

But that would mean that, as Adam was created on the sixth day that mankind has been around for 14 Billion years...

"Eve"

"Yes dear"

"I'm bored"

"Well don't worry, in another 5 billion years the Earth will be created, and we will have somewhere to stand"

 

[hgc]

ID is creationism. Its science-adherents have confused themselves into thinking that a "designer" is different from a "creator."

There are two very good books on this topic:
The Tower of Babel by Pennock http://www.amazon.com/Tower-Babel-E...0948863?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185731760&sr=1-1
Creationism's Trojan Horse by Forrest and Gross http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/019531...&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=288448401&pf_rd_i=507846

As for what Behe believes, only he knows. He is smart-enough to know what to say to try maintain some semblance of credibility. What came out at the Dover* trial is that he worked with a purely creationist publisher, 20 years ago, to produce a purely creationist text (Of People and Pandas).

I am told Behe also wrote a silly booklet claiming that there is no fossil evidence showing the evolution of land mammals to whales. (Twenty years ago, that was true; it is not true today.) I think a biochemist writing a misleading book about paleontology is promoting creationism. (The book is silly and misleading because "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.")

Concerning the OP. There is no rush of scientists wanting to promote ID. That is wishful thinking on the part of the creationists.

*This is variously known as Dover, Kitzmiller vs. somebody, or the Panda trial.

I recommend as a most valuable explanatory document of ID the decision of Judge Jones in Dover. Link. See section E.1., where he tests whether "An Objective Oberserver Would Know that ID and Teaching About 'Gaps' and 'Problems' in Evolutionary Theory are Creationist, Religious Strategies that Evolved from Earlier Forms of Creationism." The conclusion:

Although contrary to Fuller, defense experts Professors Behe and Minnich testified that ID is not creationism, their testimony was primarily by way of bare assertion and it failed to directly rebut the creationist history of Pandas or other evidence presented by Plaintiffs showing the commonality between creationism and ID. The sole argument Defendants made to distinguish creationism from ID was their assertion that the term "creationism" applies only to arguments based on the Book of Genesis, a young earth, and a catastrophic Noaich flood; however, substantial evidence established that this is only one form of creationism, including the chart that was distributed to the Board Curriculum Committee, as will be described below. (P-149 at 2; 10:129-32 (Forrest); P-555 at 22-24).

 

[whiteyonthemoon]

Nonsense. Intelligent Design is nothing else than Creationism in disguise. There are many forms of Creationism (Day-age creationism, Gap creationism, Old Earth creationism, Progressive creationism, Theistic evolution, Young Earth creationism), but all of them require an interventionist God.

Also, the most prominent advocates of ID admit that they think the "designer" is God.

Raelism. Look into it.

 

[Meadmaker]

Explain the difference, then.

"Intelligent design" is the belief that design is evident in the universe. The most commonly cited "evidence" of this design is "life is so complicated that it couldn't have arisen without a designer."

"Creationism" is the belief that life did not evolve, but was created, as is, or at least very like as it is today.

So, Michael Behe believes that once upon a time, there were single celled organisms. They mutated and formed colonies. Those mutated and formed plants and animals. Those kept mutating and having descendants that were very much, but not exactly, like their parents, until one of them looked an awful lot like us, and at that point, God said he was done and called that one "Adam".

The difference between Behe and us is that he thinks those mutations were no accident. He thinks God made those mutations happen. Furthermore, he thinks that the mutations were so improbable that they couldn't have happened without divine intervention.

One of the reasons for the confusion is, indeed, that book "Of Pandas and People". They wrote a book about creationism, and then changed the word creationism to "Intelligent Design", but described it just as they had described creationism. Reading that book, a lot of people said, "Now just a gol darned minute. We believe in intelligent design, but we don't believe all that stuff about creating fish with fins. We just believe it couldn't have happened without God."

Over time, the different camps have been clarified, so that Michael Behe, and people like him, say that they are not creationists, because they don't believe that organisms were "created", as in "created from nothing". They believe that organisms were formed through divinely guided evolution.

Now, if you absolutely insist on calling Behe and his ilk "creationists", neither I nor they can stop you, but they don't call themselves by that term, and there is a significant difference between the beliefs of those who do not call themselves creationists, and those who do.

 

[Meadmaker]

I think you're referring to Robert Gentry*


*PS I am horrifed to discover that there is no biography of the man in Encyclopedia Britannica, which is why I use Wikipedia (but be careful of the NPOV)

Yep. (I wonder who Richard Genter is. Whoever he is, sorry, Rich.)