Scientists are Biased Against the Findings of Creationists

Another topic moved from the old club to the new. Enjoy!

Considering the anonymity of peer review, how would the scientific community even find a way to distinguish a Creationist for discrimination?

This is a reply to Message 6524 at the old Yahoo club site:I think the problem comes down to where the proposed wording says, "Students are urged to exercise critical thinking, and gather all information possible and closely examine each alternative toward forming an opinion." The implication is that Creationism is an accepted scientific alternative, and that is simply not the case. The alternatives that should be presented in science class are those that scientists themselves are considering, and Creationism isn't one of them. --Percy[This message has been edited by Percipient (edited 01-03-2001).]

This is a reply to Message 6527 from tvicrospa at Yahoo Clubs.

quote:

---

Originally posted by tvicrospa:
-if the universe were not Divinely-ordered, why would the molecular structures of nonliving matter be so utterly orderly (rock, chemicals...)?

​

-if all were randomly-founded, why would you be thinking and reacting?

​

-how would those videos in dreams be there? (although random enough themselves, there is a certain orderliness, and I subjectively assert that being that these thoughts are not of my mind, but external, what random material processes could even possibly be involved?)

​

-do not two separate genomes perfectly unite, and then one resultant is obtained, with the same number of nucleotides as the original ones? How could this be done repetitively, in any randomly-founded universe?

---

Asking these kinds of "why" type questions and contemplating the origin of dreams is the province of religion, not science. You might be quite right that our universe was created by a divine being, but science can only deal with what is apparent to the five senses. And the evidence available to us indicates an ancient earth and universe, and a changing array of creatures through time.

quote:

---

Originally posted by tvicrospa:
OK, I'll stop here. I guess I will have to transfer to the new format, if I can manage it.

---

I sure hope you do come aboard! --Percy[This message has been edited by Percipient (edited 01-03-2001).]

This is a reply to Message 6540 from tvicrospa at Yahoo Clubs.

quote:

---

Originally posted by tvicrospa:
science requires some subjectivity. The very essence of evolutionary transitions is subjective, as, of course, not every possible transitional model is available.

​

Therefore, to assert that questions of the universe are religious and not 'science' per se because of the subjectivity, and that therefore these questions are not allowable in the debate, seems to me to be quite a contradictory position.

---

First, of course these questions are allowable in the debate. I don't think we should put any topic off limits.Second, if by "questions of the universe" you mean the "why" type questions you posed in Yahoo post #6527, they are science only to the degree they are based upon evidence, which is why I said science is limited to that which is evident to the five senses. This by no means implies science is not a human, and therefore subjective, activity, but it does mean that answers not based upon evidence are not scientific. If you can answer your philosophical questions with evidence then you're doing science. So far you have no evidence, only rhetorical questions like, "How could order possibly descend from a random universe?"I am assuming, of course, that your question is more of the nature of how the natural laws governing our universe came to be, something science cannot answer without evidence and so is more appropriate for philosophy and metaphysics, as opposed to describing the nuts and bolts behaviors of the laws themselves, something science is pretty good at. But you go on in a different vein:

---

There are so many probably millions of anecdotal circumstantial evidences that point against random being, and random construction of life. How did a crab, or crab ancestor (surely no ancestor has been yet found, right?) obtain hemocyanin as its oxygen-carrier, but invertebrates (or ancestors) obtain hemoglobin, for the exact same purpose?

---

There's no need to pose specific questions. The amount we do not know and possibly can never know about specific evolutionary paths is immense. Most of the history of life no longer exists, being either decayed or eroded or subducted or crushed or buried or heated and metamorphised or in some way destroyed. And just because we one day develop plausible scenarios for how hemocyanin and hemoglobin evolved does not mean that any of them are correct. We can never know for sure, and this is more than just the simple precept that science is tentative. We can only hypothesize, not theorize, about much of life's history because in most circumstances the evidence is simply absent.What science *can* do is develop theory for what evidence we have, and the theory of evolution is consistent with that evidence. Further, it is the responsibility of science to describe the world as we find it, not as we wish it, and whenever evidence is uncovered that falsifies current theory then that theory must change, perhaps even be overthrown.When considered in this context, your additional questions concerning centipedes and thinking plants are still clearly in the non-evidentiary category. You have as yet presented no evidence for Creationism or against evolution. In order to make your case that Creationism deserves consideration alongside evolution you must show that, like evolution, it has evidence apparent to the five senses supporting it.[This message has been edited by Percipient (edited 01-05-2001).]

Re-li-gen is what is suppressive not science

quote:

---

Originally posted by gene90:
Considering the anonymity of peer review, how would the scientific community even find a way to distinguish a Creationist for discrimination?

​

---

I am not sure how this happens but this it does and in my case if I have not been discriminated for communicating with Creationists then the science is even in more trouble than the "rosy-cozy-cornered" market even 'believes.' I had with my first used of e-mail tried to communicate with John Grehan, a New Zealand panbiogeographer relocated to Penn State and his first transmittal was postive but as I began to get in writing my position on "spatial evolution" utlizing the panbiogeography that started as an independent study at Cornell under Amy McCune he has broken off contact with me and is currently invovled on web site TAXACOM in a discussion of censorship, his while he has selected to ignore and return unopened a package of my work I sent.Earlier on Taxacom he made frequent references to "US" creationist discourse so I did not expect for bias that he lost connection with me but he carries on without any acknowledgement that my ideas had any effect or should have on professional biogeographers. He may in fact feel that he learned nothing from me but that certianly does not justify his breaking off the panbiog abbreviation I communicated with him for there are in his words only a minority that may be using this method to "beat the horse" as his critics comment on the subject.This difference obviously is without anonymous peer review but there is contribution of creationism to the changes that occur as evolution thinking overreaches its actual biological locus and in my case this coming in the new electronic publishing domain while copyright and peer-review or as one biodiversity informaticist calls it, "Accreditation: The process of assigning trust levels to validators" has not been worked into the form submission protocol adequately. Hope that helps.