Chris/ Fredric: Just saw the 26 June post, and thought I'd forward some
info on the subject...
David Buckna
>Re: Yes, Creationism IS a child
>molestation, we know...
>
>
>
>From colby@bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
>Organization Boston University
>Date 26 Jun 1996 16:20:58 GMT
>Newsgroups talk.origins,sci.skeptic,talk.atheism
>Message-ID <4qro1a$634@news.bu.edu>
>References 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
>
>
>
>I've set followups to talk.origins.
>
>Fredric L. Rice (frice@stbbs.com) wrote:
>
>: Well, someone asked about any geologist who might hold a degree and
>: I was able to come up with one after _must_ research through the
>: extensive archives here. A chairman of the geology branch of the
>: Institute for Creation Research (sic) by the name, as I recall, of
>: Steven Austin (not to be confused with the "Steve Austin" who was the
>: Six Million Dollar Man.) }:-}
>
>There's also Kurt Wise, a paleontologist. His advisor was S. J. Gould.
>He's a creationist of some sort.
1989: The Estimation of True Taxonomic Durations from Fossil
Occurrence Data, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA, 550 pp. Wise, Kurt P.
Wise teaches at Bryan College in Dayton, TN. Some articles by Wise that I'm
aware of (non-creationist publications):
1981: co-authored with Thomas J. M. Schopf: Was marine faunal
diversity in the Pleistocene affected by changes in sea
level?, Paleobiology, 7(3):394-399.
1991: The use of fossil occurrence data to distinguish between
instantaneous and stepwise extinction
[abstract], Geol. Soc. Am. Abstr. w/ Progr., 1991:A184.
1991: "The fossil record: The ultimate test-case for
young-earth creationism", Opus: A Journal for
Interdisciplinary Studies, 1991-92:17-29.
1995: with Steven A. Austin, "Nautiloid mass-kill event at a
hydrothermal mound within the Rewall Limestone
(Mississippian), Grand Canyon, Arizona" [abstract], Geol.
Soc. Am. Abstr. w/Progr., 27(6):A369.
>: Finding a degreed Creationist with a hard-science background in the
>: areas of their pontifications is damn near a futile exercise.
I guess you've never heard of paleontologist Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer, or her
husband, microbiologist Siegfried Scherer (Germany). Both are creationists.
For example, Hartwig-Scherer and Robert Martin completed an analysis of
Homo habilis specimen OH 62 and found that it is even more apelike than
AL288-1 (Lucy) (see Journal of Human Evolution 21:439-449, 1991) They
report: "Computerized tomography scanning revealed that the cortex of the
arm bones of OH 62 is amazingly thick and more robust than that of many
chimpanzees."
>Duane Gish has a PhD in biochemistry. I can't remeber if Michael
>Denton has a real degree (as opposed to the usual diploma-mill
>degrees most creationists sport).
Denton is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Otago in New
Zealand, (Dept. of Biochemistry) and author of "Evolution: A Theory in
Crisis". Are you saying that Denton's a creationist? Actually, he's kind of
an enigma. I've often wondered if he is: agnostic or atheist?;
evolutionist, anti-evolutionist, or small "c" creationist? Who knows? No
doubt his new book, which is scheduled to come out later this year, will
give added insight into his current position.
A while back he commented:
>So, there's a handful of creationists who have actually earned a
>science degree before completely renouncing the goals and ideals
>of science.
...a "handful" of creationists with science degrees? According to Russell
Humphreys (Sandia National Laboratories) in the US alone there's around
10,000 practicing scientists who are biblical creationists. I'd say that
was more than a "handful".
DO CREATIONISTS PUBLISH IN NOTABLE REFEREED JOURNALS?
by David Buckna
In his book The Monkey Business (1982) paleontologist Niles Eldredge wrote
that no author who published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly
"has contributed a single article to any reputable scientific journal"
(p.83). Apparently Eldredge couldn't be bothered to glance at the Science
Citatation Index or any other major science bibliographic source.
Developmental biologist Willem J. Ouweneel, a Dutch creationist and CRSQ
contributor, published a classic and widely cited paper on developmental
anomalies in fruit flies ("Developmental genetics of homoeosis," Advances
in Genetics, 16 [1976], 179-248). Herpetologist Wayne Friar, a frequent
CRSQ contributor, publishes his work on turtle systematics and serology in
such journals as Journal of Herpetology, Comparative Biochemistry and
Physiology, Science, and Herpetologica.
In their study of creationist publishing practices ("The Elusive Scientific
Basis of Creation 'Science'", Quarterly Review of Biology ,60 (1985):
21-30), Eugenie Scott and Henry Cole surveyed the editors of 68 journals
for the period from 1980-1983, looking for creationist submissions. Out of
an estimated 135,000 submitted papers, Scott and Cole found only 18 that
could be described "as advocating scientific creationism" (p.26).
Scott and Cole were not looking for papers like the following: In 1983,
the German creationist and microbiologist Siegfried Scherer published a
critique of evolutionary theories of the origin of photosynthesis entitled
"Basic Functional States in the Evolution of Light-driven Cyclic Electron
Transport", Journal of Theoretical Biology ,104 [1983]: 289-299, one of the
journals Scott and Cole surveyed. Only an editor who had a complete roster
of European creationists, and the insight to follow the implications of
Scherer's argument would have flagged the paper as "creationist".
How many papers did Scott and Cole miss? Let's look at 1984, one year past
the end of their survey. Would Scott and Cole have turned up "Enzymic
Editing Mechanisms and the Origin of Biological Information Transfer", by
the creationist biochemist Grant Lambert (Journal of Theoretical Biology,
107 [1984]:387-403)? Lambert argues that without editing enzymes, primitive
DNA replication, transcription, and translation would have been swamped by
extremely high error rates. But the editing enzymes are themselves produced
by DNA.
It's a brilliant argument for design. Lambert understandably counts on some
subtlety and insight from his readers, however. Lambert doesn't
"explicitly" wave his creationist banner, leaving the dilemma as "an
unresolved problem in theoretical biology" (p.401). By Scott and Cole's
criteria, such papers don't really count. By any other reasonable criteria,
however, they do.
Dr. D. Russell Humphreys, a physicist working for the prestigious Sandia
National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico (who is involved with the
laboratory's particle beam fusion project, concerning thermonuclear fusion
energy research) is a board member of the Creation Research Society. He has
about 30 published articles in mainstream technical journals from 1968 to
the present.In the last eight years alot of his work has been classified,
so there has been less of it in the open literature.
His most recent unclassified publication is a multiple-author article in
Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 63, Number 10, October 1992, pp.
5068-5071, "Comparison of experimental results and calculated detector
responses for PBFAII thermal source experiments." I understand that a more
recent unclassified article will be published in the near future.
Here is just a sampling of some of his earlier articles:
"Inertial confinement fusion with light ion beams," (Multiple-author)
International Atomic Energy Agency, 13th International Conference on
Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research, Washington
D.C., 1-6 October 1990.
"Progress toward a superconducting opening switch," (Principal
author), Proceedings of 6th IEEE Pulsed Power Conference (Arlington,
VA June 29 - July 1, 1987) pp. 279-282.
"Rimfire: a six megavolt laser-triggered gas-filled switch for PBFA
II," (Principal author),Proceedings of 5th IEEE Pulsed Power
Conference (Arlington, VA June 10-12, 1985) pp. 262-2265.
"Uranium logging with prompt fission neutrons," (Principal author)
International Journal of Applied Radiation and Isotopes, Vol. 34,
Number 1, 1983, pp. 261-268.
"The 1/gamma velocity dependence of nucleon-nucleus optical
potentials," (Only author) Nuclear Physics, Vol. A182, 1972, pp.
580-592.
Creationists such as Humphreys have extensive publications in mainstream
journals on non-creationist topics. As mentioned previously, the article by
Scott & Cole was a search for articles openly espousing creationism, which
is a different matter. Creationists who publish scientific research in
mainstream journals have found that they can publish articles with data
having creationist implications, but will not get articles with openly
creationist conclusions published. When they attempt to do this, their
articles are usually rejected. Those who are well-known to evolutionists
as creationists have more difficulty even with articles which do not have
obvious creationist implications.
In the summer of 1985 Humphreys wrote to the journal Science pointing out
that openly creationist articles are suppressed by most journals. He asked
if Science had "a hidden policy of suppressing creationist letters."
Christine Gilbert, the letters editor, replied and admitted, "It is true
that we are not likely to publish creationist letters."
This admission is particularly significant since Science's official letters
policy is that they represent "the range of opinions received." eg. letters
must be representative of part of the spectrum of opinions. Yet of all the
opinions they receive, Science does not print the creationist ones.
Humphrey's letter and Ms. Gilbert's reply are reprinted in the book, *
Creation's Tiny Mystery, by physicist Robert V.Gentry (Earth Science
Associates, Knoxville, Tennessee, 2nd edition, 1988.)
On May 19,1992 Humphreys submitted his article ** "Compton scattering and
the cosmic microwave background bumps" to the Scientific Correspondence
section of the British journal Nature. The editorial staff knew Humphreys
was a creationist and didn't want to publish it (even though the article
did not contain any glaring creationist implications). The editorial staff
didn't even want to send it through official peer review. Six months later
Nature published an article by someone else on the same topic, having the
same conclusions. Thus, most creationist researchers realize it is simply a
waste of time to send journal editors openly creationist articles. To say
that a "slight bias" exists on the part of journal editors would be an
understatement.
** The Institute for Creation Research published an abridged version of
Humphrey's article in their Impact series [No. 233, "Bumps in the Big
Bang", November 1992]. Reference 5 of that article contains information
about the Nature submission.
In the 70's and early 80's physicist Robert Gentry had several articles
with very significant creationist data published in mainstream journals
(Science, Nature, Journal of Geophysical Research, etc.), but found he
couldn't publish openly creationist conclusions. Gentry had discovered that
granites contain microscopic coloration halos produced by the radioactive
decay of primordial polonium. According to evolutionary theory, polonium
halos should not be there. Some believe that the existence of polonium
halos is scientific evidence that the Earth was created instantaneously.
When Oak Ridge National
Laboratories terminated Gentry's connection with them as a visiting
professor (shortly after it became nationally known he is a creationist)
the number of his articles slowed down, but he continues to publish.
Russell Humphreys said in a 1993 interview:"I'm part of a fairly large
scientific community in New Mexico, and a good number of these are
creationists. Many don't actively belong to any creationist organization.
Based on those proportions and knowing the membership of the Creation
Research Society, it's probably a conservative estimate that there are in
the US alone around 10,000 practicing scientists who are biblical
creationists." ("Creation in the Physics Lab", Creation Ex Nihilo Magazine,
Vol. 15, No. 3, pages 20-23)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* A companion video for Creation's Tiny Mystery entitled "Fingerprints of
Creation", Video Cat. No. VFINCR (34 minutes) can be ordered at
Additional information on Dr. D. Russell Humphreys:
Dr. Humphreys was awarded his Ph.D. in physics from Louisiana State
University in 1972, by which time he was a fully convinced creationist. For
the next six years he worked in the High Voltage Laboratory of General
Electric Company. Since 1979, he has worked for Sandia National
Laboratories in nuclear physics, geophysics, pulsed power research,
theoretical atomic and nuclear physics, and the Particle Beam Fusion
Project. Dr. Humphreys is an adjunct professor of Geophysics and
Astrophysics at the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, a Board
member of the Creation Research Society and is president of the Creation
Science Fellowship of New Mexico. He is also the author of the book
"Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young
Universe", Master Books, 1994 (ISBN 0-89051-202-7) which details his white
hole cosmology theory.
Related article
One other ICR Impact article by Humphreys can be viewed at:
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-242.htm The Earth's Magnetic Field is Young
David Buckna
