by Joyce Arthur

Article and Drawing Copyright (c) 1996 Skeptic Society

Published in the Skeptic, magazine of the Skeptic Society, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1996, pp. 88-93

[The following is a slightly expanded version]

"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church...a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."

--- Martin Luther

Can the Biblical creation story in Genesis be converted into a scientific account of the origin of humanity? Is it a fair and plausible alternative to the theory of evolution? Many people believe so, and some people work hard to make it so. But can it be done honestly and with integrity? A look at the "scientific" creationist movement and a close examination of the tactics of a well-known and influential creationist will reveal that the creation "science" movement gains much of its [lost] of distortion and scientifically unethical tactics.

The mandate of the "scientific" creationist movement is to introduce the Biblical story of creation into public school science classrooms by disguising it as science. In attempts to legislate the teaching of creationism during the early 1980's, "scientific" creationists, referred to hereafter as creationists, introduced bills in various state legislatures that called for "equal time" teaching of both creationism and evolution. These bills, as well as a law that was passed in "creation science" as follows:

"Creation science includes the scientific evidences and related inferences that indicate: (1) Sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing; (2) The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism; (3) Changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals; (4) Separate ancestry for man and apes; (5) Explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of worldwide flood; and (6) A relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds" (Edwords 1983).

The Arkansas law, Act 590, which mandated the teaching of creation science, was overturned in a landmark decision in 1982 by Judge William Overton. The creation science bill amounted to "a religious crusade, coupled with a desire to conceal this fact," he said, and "the evidence is overwhelming that both the purpose and effect of Act 590 is the advancement of religion in the public schools" (Overton 1982). A similar law that was passed in Louisiana in 1981 was overturned by the U. S. June 19, 1987 on much the same grounds (Eve and Harrold 1991).

In spite of their legal losses, creationists were steadily making inroads into public education. The battle was being waged on a grass-roots level, at school boards and individual schools, by local, dedicated creationists (Eve and Harrold 1991). In the early 1980's, some scientists engaged in a counterattack by refuting the arguments of the creationists on a scientific level. For example, several books were published which took apart the creationist arguments piece by piece, and defended the theory of evolution (Eldredge 1982; Futuyma 1983; Kitcher 1984; McGowan 1984). The authors took pains to point out many scientific errors, omissions, and misunderstandings that led the creationists to doubt and attack evolution.

With the facts explained and the lawsuits won, scientists declared victory and returned to their labs and offices. But stubbornly, the creationist movement refused to die. Scientists had misjudged their opponents because they had assessed the creationist arguments from a scientific standpoint. Many failed to realize that it is not facts or theories that drive the creationist machine; it is strong religious beliefs, and the need to protect traditional lifestyles and values from the threat of secularism and "godless" evolution. Because of this, creationists do not use the methods of science to spread their message. They rely on charisma, religious faith, and emotional appeals which depict evolution as a destroyer of society (LaHaye 1974) and evolutionists as materialistic atheists who conspire to suppress creationism while hiding the many supposed weaknesses of evolution (Gish 1990a).

In recent years, some scientists have implied or stated that creationists regularly use distortion and deception when promoting creationism (Kitcher 1984; Godfrey 1984). For example, Tim Berra, a zoology professor at Ohio State University has stated: "The arguments of these fundamentalist missionaries often involve tortured logic, a stubborn denial of the evidence, a shallow understanding, or a reckless disregard for the truth" (1990: 125-126). Do creationists knowingly use deception to promote nonsense? To find out, we will take a close look at a leading spokesperson for a major creationist center, Dr. Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research. Gish's tactics have virtually served as a model for creationism in general, so examining his methods may shed some light on this question.

The Institute for Creation Research

The Institute for Creation Research, located in San Diego, California, has been a leading center for the promotion of creation science for over 20 years and publishes hundreds of creationist books, tapes, and teaching aids. It is the group responsible for the bills introduced and passed in state legislatures.

ICR prohibits academic freedom for its members. Staff at the Institute are not allowed to espouse anything that might contradict the basic dogma of the creation science model. To join, each scientist must sign a pledge professing adherence to several major tenets. These tenets include the factual and historical integrity of the Bible and the sudden creation of every living creature during the six-day Genesis creation week (Nelkin 1982).

Debates - A Creationist Weapon

A favorite method used by ICR and other creationists to promote creationism is to debate prominent scientists at high schools, colleges, and universities on the merits of evolution versus creation. These public debates go a long way toward furthering creationist ideas. By debating well-known scientists, creationists receive considerable respect and credibility. Since debates are financed and heavily promoted by creationists and other Christian groups, they must be doing it because it helps their cause. Often, most of the debate audience consists of local church groups who have been specially bussed in for the occasion. Debates are a poor forum for imparting the complexities of science and evolution, and a good forum for delivering the simplistic and often eloquent rhetoric of creation science. Having a debate implies that creation and evolution are on equal terms and that the question of which one is right is an open issue that can be won or lost, and confidently decided, by a non-scientific audience within one evening (Edwords 1982a).

Duane Gish, Debating King

Duane Gish, Vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research, is an experienced and eloquent debater in the creationist camp. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and is probably the most influential and visible creationist in North America. He has lectured and debated widely on creation versus evolution and is the author of several books and many articles espousing creationism. Gish's debate presentations are well-prepared, polished, and very persuasive to a layperson unfamiliar with science.

I examined many of Gish's published writings, as well as transcripts and tapes of his debates, and discovered countless examples of questionable tactics and misleading arguments. The majority of Gish's arguments I found to be a morass of errors, omissions, misquotes, old data, distortions, and non sequiturs. Even worse is my discovery that many scientists have publicly corrected Gish in his presence, but Gish has gone on to repeat the same errors in later debates and writings.

This troubling situation arises because Gish's debates are canned---he repeats more or less the same stories and arguments against evolution over and over, from place to place, from month to month, from year to year. The same arguments are even reproduced in his books and articles. Because of the nature of debates, it's inevitable that some of Gish's arguments get refuted by various scientists over time, often more than once. But Gish just goes to the next debate without ever changing any of his storyline. He succeeds at this, because in the next city, with a new audience and a new scientist to debate, who's to know that his argument got shot down, with evidence, by that other evolutionist last week?

In his debates, much of Gish's diatribe is directed towards the fossil record and the alleged lack of transitional forms between earlier and later forms of life. Gish has admitted that if transitional forms can be shown to exist, then creationism is dead (see Debates-Parrish 1991). Creationists, including Gish, are able to deny the existence of transitional forms because they use their own home-made definition of the term. For example, Gish claims that to be intermediate, fossils must be on a direct line of descent with each other and that transitional creatures would have to possess half-formed, and therefore useless, body parts (Gish 1985, 1995). But evolution does not happen that way and the well-known theory of punctuated equilibrium solves many supposed problems with the fossil record (Gould and Eldredge 1972).

Not surprisingly, the topic of transitional forms is where Gish experiences the most problems. The rest of this article documents instances where Gish, in his debates or writings, has either ignored public corrections or has appeared to knowingly promote false information. The first few examples relate directly to his statements on transitions, including the proposed ape-like ancestors of modern humans, and it is with these ancestors that we begin.

A Question of Uprightness

Lucy is a 40% complete skeleton of a three million-year old Australopithecine (early hominid) discovered in Ethiopia by Donald Johanson in 1973. Scientists consider Lucy to be strong evidence for human evolution, because her skeleton shows both ape-like and human characteristics. She probably walked upright, and is thought by many to be on the direct evolutionary line to humans.

Lucy is a standard component of Gish's debates. He has been repeating the same story about her since at least 1981. Gish's motive is to show that Lucy was not a transitional form between humans and apes, but just an ape that could not walk upright. After discussing Lucy briefly, he cites scientist Lord Solly Zuckerman, who Gish claims did a thorough and careful 15-year study of the Australopithecines with the conclusion that these creatures did not walk upright (see Debates-Doolittle 1981, Park 1982, Thwaites 1988, Parrish 1991; see also Gish 1982). Gish clearly implies that Zuckerman examined the Lucy skeleton itself.

However, Gish has repeatedly been told in many debates over the years that this is false (see Debates-Brace 1982, Miller 1982, Saladin 1988, Thwaites 1988). Zuckerman never saw Lucy, and his conclusion on Australopithecines was made at least three years before Lucy was even discovered (Zuckerman 1970). Furthermore, Zuckerman didn't work with any of the original Australopithecine fossils. His conclusions were based on a cast of one half of the pelvis of a single specimen.

In 1982, at a high school in Lion's Head, Ontario, Gish debated Chris McGowan, a zoologist from the University of Toronto. A member of the audience, Jay Ingram, (former host of the national Canadian radio program Quirks and Quarks), heard Gish's Lucy story, which clearly implied that Zuckerman had studied Lucy herself and concluded that she, along with other Australopithecines, did not walk upright. Knowing this was not true, Ingram asked Gish in the question and answer period why he had misled the audience. A show of hands indicated that about 90% of the audience had assumed from what Gish had said that Zuckerman had studied Lucy. Gish became very upset, lost his temper, and railed that he wasn't responsible for people misinterpreting his remarks (Ingram 1992).

Gish has never bothered to change his misleading story; in fact, he went on to increase its inaccuracy. In a 1991 debate with biologist Fred Parrish, Gish stated outright that Zuckerman had examined the Lucy skeleton itself: "For 15 years...[Zuckerman] studied fossils of Lucy and fossils of 1-2 million years younger than Lucy [sic]" (see Debates-Parrish 1991).

Homo Erectus - A Tangled Web of Contradictions

Gish likes to argue that the dating of the geologic column, or strata, is based on a circular argument. He states in his book Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record (1985) that the arrangement of the geological column is "based on the assumption of evolution" (pp. 47) and that the dating of fossils is based on a false assumption because fossils in rocks are used to date rocks, but at the same time, rocks are used to date fossils. These claims are faithfully repeated in his recent evolution: The Fossils Still Say NO! (1995).

However, 18th century creationist geologists had worked out the major components of the geologic column over 50 years before evolution was accepted. They organized strata by type of rock and observed that certain fossils were found only in particular strata (stratigraphy). This succession of fossil types was thought to reflect different time periods separated by cataclysms and new creations. Today, dating of the geologic column is supplemented by independent radiometric dating methods (Kitcher 1984).

At a public forum at the University of Toronto in 1982, Gish admitted that his argument was not true. Chris McGowan, a zoology professor, elicited a confession from Gish. In his book, In the Beginning... (1984), McGowan describes and refutes the creationist view that the geological column is based on the assumption of evolution. He then says, "To be fair, though, I must point out that during a recent public forum Dr. Gish did concede the error when I confronted him with a geological map published in 1795" (pp. 99-100).

Unfortunately, Gish's Challenge book was published in 1985, three years after he admitted in public that his argument about the geologic column was in error.

Gish Revises Physics - Nobel Prize Winner Wrong

Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel prize in 1977 for his work on the thermodynamics of nonequilibrium systems. He wrote a related article in 1972 explaining how nonequilibrium thermodynamics solves the puzzle of how life can originate and increase its state of order in spite of entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Prigogine 1972). Simply put, the Second Law states that in a closed system, "useful" energy that can do work becomes gradually converted over time to energy that is unavailable for entropy, or an increase of disorder. Creationists interpret this to mean that complex living systems could not have evolved from simpler forms because overall, things run down rather than build up. However, living things are open systems and as Prigogine emphasized, are far from a state of equilibrium. They acquire energy from the sun and can locally decrease entropy and even increase their order and complexity without a violation of the Second Law.

In a debate with George Bakken (see Debates-Bakken 1987), Gish pretended ignorance of Prigogine's basic thesis and instead claimed that Prigogine said the origin of life was virtually impossible because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Bakken 1991). Prigogine's words were taken from the beginning of his article (1972) where he summarized the position that he was about to spend the next several pages refuting. Perhaps Gish only read the first page. However, he definitely knew before that debate what Prigogine really said. In a 1982 debate, Gish was told about Prigogine's article by his opponent, C. Loring Brace, who described it as "an unassailable refutation of Gish's claims" (see Debates-Brace 1982).

In Gish's book Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics (1993), he changes tactics by strongly implying that Prigogine is not competent to theorize on the origin of life. After casting aspersions on Prigogine's scientific method by claiming that he "hasn't spent any time in the laboratory in years," Gish says:

"Prigogine's theoretical ideas are buttressed with a large amount of complicated mathematics which few biochemists and molecular biologists can understand, but it all does look deliciously scientific. Since Prigogine's speculations lend comfort to his fellow evolutionists among the biochemists and molecular biologists, they are only too eager to bow to the authority of this Nobel Prize winner." (pp. 186-187)

A logical inference from this statement is that Gish, a biochemist who has not spent any time in the laboratory in years, likely does not understand Prigogine's mathematics himself. Unwilling to admit this, he imputes his lack of understanding to other scientists and concludes that they are paying blind obeisance to a Nobel prize winner.

Gish's Amazing Story of Evolution

Besides his debating techniques and ignored public corrections, there is a disturbing omission by Gish that should be revealed. Gish has written a book for young people called The Amazing Story of Creation From Science and the Bible (1990a), in which he seriously misrepresents the theory of evolution. Not once in the book does he mention natural selection by name, the most important mechanism of evolution. By generally downplaying and ignoring the role of natural selection, Gish makes evolution seem absurd. He represents it as occurring entirely by chance and mutations: "Mutation is the commonly accepted mechanism required, by evolution, to change the first form of life into all other living creatures" (pp. 43).

But without natural selection, there is no hope of understanding evolution. Natural selection dictates that individuals with traits and variations better suited to the environment are more likely to survive than others who are less well-suited. Because they compete more successfully for mates and limited resources, and live longer, the fitter individuals leave more offspring, and their favorable traits are passed on to succeeding generations. The traits spread through the population, and eventually, perhaps, cause it to evolve into a new species.

Gish is an active anti-evolutionist who knows very well what the basic tenets of evolutionary theory are. He has a responsibility to at least present the other side fairly, but instead, he has has distorted and effectively concealed the cornerstone of the theory of evolution from his young, trusting readers.

Conclusion

Gish seems to be guilty of systematic distortion and misrepresentation. When his errors are publicly corrected, he tends to continue their repetition. Why does Gish do this? Obviously, his actions promote the cause of creationism. Most of the people in debate audiences only hear Gish once and leave with a favorable impression of his arguments. Few people would have the patience to follow Gish around on his debate tours and catch him at his tricks. The rare occasions when he's been caught red-handed are more than compensated by the many times he's gotten away with it.

According to the book, The Creationist Movement in Modern America, the psychology of creationists is very different from that of evolutionists (Eve and Harrold 1991). The authors say that creationists tend to perceive the world through the filter of their religious beliefs, and they differ from their opponents in "their most profound understandings of reality, religion, American society, and the nature of the scientific enterprise" (pp. 67).

In light of that perspective, it is not surprising that some people who have met or debated Gish have come to the conclusion that he is not knowingly dishonest. For example, Robert Schadewald (1991), a freelance science writer who has followed the antics of Gish, states:

"I used to be convinced that Gish was a conscious liar, because so many of the things he says are demonstrably false, and he is neither stupid nor uneducated. In the last few years, I have changed my mind. I now think that Gish is so severely deluded that he can no longer distinguish what he wants to believe from reality, at least on a conscious level."

William Thwaites and Frank Awbrey (1991) state:

"We...were convinced at first that he must be a deliberate liar, but now we have concluded that he is not. ...Gish says only what supports his belief. In his mind, that cannot possibly be a lie. ... We also think that sometimes he says what he wishes were true. If he wishes he hadn't said something, then he didn't say it." [italics in original]

David Milne (1991) states:

"[Gish] says things that are false, now, but I suspect that he no longer even realizes it, or cares. ... He may have known, at one time, that there was something shaky or even devious about his claims, but he's made them so long now, that they have taken on a truth of their own for him."

A lack of integrity, whether deliberate or not, usually damages one's reputation, but instead, Gish's tactics have helped enhance the credibility of the Institute for Creation Research, and probably that of the entire creationist movement. Teachers and scientists struggling with the threat of creationism need to be fully aware of the exact methods used by one of the most popular advocates of creationism. A campaign based on errors and distortions does not require respect, or the time and effort spent in fighting it. If tactics such as Gish's become common knowledge, we can perhaps begin to close the creationist chapter and get back to the work of real science.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Bob Camfield, David Milne, Thomas Jukes, and Geoffrey Scudder for helpful comments and editing, and especially to Stephen Arthur for his editing, advice, encouragement, and support.

Joyce Arthur is a technical writer and editor, as well as a part-time freelance writer of both fiction and non-fiction. She has followed the creation/evolution controversy for many years. She lives in Vancouver, B.C.

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