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Author Topic:   What is Creation Science? By Morris and Parker
Lithodid-Man
Member (Idle past 2931 days)
Posts: 504
From: Juneau, Alaska, USA
Joined: 03-22-2004


Message 1 of 7 (503313)
03-17-2009 5:57 PM


Several times in multiple threads member Kelly recommended and/or referred to a book called What is Creation Science? By Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker. After searching my bookshelves I realized that this in one I do not have, so immediately purchased it from Amazon. I had made the promise that I would buy and read the book with as much of an open mind as possible in the hopes of a discussion with Kelly on the book.
Well, I read it from cover to cover. And, as many of you said, it was exactly the same material Morris has presented in other works such as Scientific Creationism. Nowhere in the book does he present a model for how a creation science research program would or should proceed. There is simply none presented, just a long series of supposed refutations of evolution. I am not just making a blanket assertion, I can go into great detail about this. There also is, typical Morris style, a heavy lacing of his favorite quotes (the same ones from the Quote Book and In their own Words). I find these particularly fun as I like to obtain the original sources and do a side by side comparison.
For example, in the very first paragraph of chapter 1 Morris writes:
quote:
Furthermore, all of the facts of science which we can observe seem to contradict the very idea of evolution. As the evolutionist, George Marsden, has admitted (1973) "Evolution...strains popular common sense. It is simply difficult to believe that the amazing order of life on Earth arose out of the original disorder of the universe"
Now, if you take Morris at his word you see that this evolutionist is admitting that the concept of evolution is stretching the bounds of credibility. Even he, as an expert, has a hard time swallowing it, right?
I don't have the original essay by Marsden, although it is (presumably the same) reproduced in a collection of Marsden's essays called "Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicism" First of all, George Marsden is not an "evolutionist" (in a professional sense). He is a professor of history and divinity. Second, the essay is called "Why creation science?" and is an attempt to explain why creation science is widely accepted by layman. He is not presenting his beliefs on the subject but presenting how it sounds to people who are not familiar with the underlying sciences. If Morris read that essay, I think he would know what the author was presenting. He would know that Marsden was not admitting some fatal weakness in the science. But Morris knows that it is a safe bet his audience would never go read that source themselves. Even if they tried, he doesn't include this essay in his bibliography but includes another Marsden essay from 1983. They may be the same (?), if anyone has access to Nature 1983 Vol. 305 pg 572 take a look and see if that quote is included (My school stopped subscribing to archived journals before 1990 or so).
If Kelly is still interested I would be willing to do a one on one discussion of this book chapter by chapter. Is it possible to place this in Book Nook and relocate if Kelly is interested in discussion?
Morris HM and Parker GE (1987) What is Creation Science? 2nd Ed. Revised and expanded. Master Books, El Cajon, California 331 pp.

Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Percy, posted 03-18-2009 8:50 AM Lithodid-Man has not replied
 Message 5 by New Cat's Eye, posted 03-18-2009 10:28 AM Lithodid-Man has not replied

  
AdminNosy
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Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 2 of 7 (503321)
03-17-2009 7:01 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 3 of 7 (503362)
03-18-2009 8:50 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Lithodid-Man
03-17-2009 5:57 PM


I think Kelly is unlikely to return. She sent a long email to my admin account detailing the issues she has with the moderation of this site, and given the rather uncompromising "this is the way it is and here's why" response I sent don't think we'll see her again soon.
Which is too bad. I regret that she's gone, but at the same time I don't understand the attitude of the "I've been here for 179 whole messages and here's what you're doing wrong and why I won't come back if you don't fix it" people.
Her email isn't public, but I can forward a message to her if you like.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Lithodid-Man, posted 03-17-2009 5:57 PM Lithodid-Man has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 4 by AdminModulous, posted 03-18-2009 9:20 AM Percy has not replied
 Message 7 by AdminModulous, posted 03-18-2009 4:39 PM Percy has not replied

  
AdminModulous
Administrator
Posts: 897
Joined: 03-02-2006


Message 4 of 7 (503363)
03-18-2009 9:20 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Percy
03-18-2009 8:50 AM


For what its worth, in a reply to a second, shorter, email I received along those kind of lines I simply invited her to a discussion on this thread and forwarded a link on to her.
Edited by AdminModulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Percy, posted 03-18-2009 8:50 AM Percy has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 7 (503370)
03-18-2009 10:28 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Lithodid-Man
03-17-2009 5:57 PM


From Message 268:
Catholic Scientist writes:
Kelly writes:
I recommended the very source needed to see the difference. "What is Creation Science?" Morris/Parker
I'm familiar with the book....
All it does is attack evolution. It offers no positive evidence of creation, it does not lay out a theory, it does not provide supporting evidence, it does not make predictions. If anything, it show just how unscientific creation science is.
Kelly replies with, in Message 277:
Kelly writes:
You are parroting a common claim that has no truth to. If you were really familiar with the book, you would know this and you would know what creation science really is too.
How much do you want to bet that Kelly has never even read the book?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Lithodid-Man, posted 03-17-2009 5:57 PM Lithodid-Man has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by dwise1, posted 03-18-2009 4:02 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 6 of 7 (503404)
03-18-2009 4:02 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by New Cat's Eye
03-18-2009 10:28 AM


How much do you want to bet that Kelly has never even read the book?
If that's the case, then it certainly would be in keeping with creationist tradition. I know that in "Scientific Creationism" Henry Morris had cited a "1976" NASA document, "Meteor Orbits and Dust (NASA SP-135, Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics Vol. 2)", without ever having looked at it, because if he had then he would have immediately seen that it was a 1965 document printed in 1967 and that it was Volume 11 of that series. What Morris had actually done was to simply repeat a claim made by another creationist and then dishonestly claim that creationist's purported source as his own. For that matter, I strongly suspect that that other creationist, Harold Slusher, had similarly gotten the claim from yet another creationist and had himself dishonestly claimed that other creationist's source as his own. I would not doubt that most of the sources cited in What is Creation Science? are similar in that he had never actually read them either but rather just repeated another creationist's claim. Creationist claims are like urban legends: they just get repeated over and over again.
But I still do not doubt that Kelly is a new-comer and not an experienced creationist. She was too navely confident in her single source to have experienced the truth about it yet; a more experienced creationist would have been more cagey. And I think that she does have a copy of the book, because I suspect that she had lifted some paragraphs from it and inserted them unattributed in some of her posts.

One of the problems with revealing the lies in this book lies in tracking down all the "quotes". For one thing, we need ready access to a sizable library, something that not all of us have. Second, we'd have to figure out what Morris is referring to: in many cases, he summarizes an author's position without even trying to quote him.
But some we can track down. On pages 86-88, Morris writes:
quote:
Regarding the origin of the eye, Darwin wrote these words:
quote:
To suppose that the eye, [with so many parts all working together] ... could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.
"Absurd in the highest degree." That's Darwin's own opinion of using natural selection to explain the origin of traits that depend on many parts working together.
But that's not what Darwin was saying, as we immediately see when we read the source:
quote:
To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.
(On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life., Chapter 6 - Difficulties on Theory, Organs of extreme perfection and complication.)
IOW, our ability to envision how the eye could have evolved may fail us, but if we were to think and reason it out, then we find that it makes perfect sense for the eye to have evolved. And, indeed, Darwin then proceeds to give several examples of those intermediate forms of visual organs where are indeed found to exist in nature and which are all functional.
IOW, Henry Morris lied about what Darwin was saying. And we'll find that that's not the only lie in this book.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by New Cat's Eye, posted 03-18-2009 10:28 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied

  
AdminModulous
Administrator
Posts: 897
Joined: 03-02-2006


Message 7 of 7 (503411)
03-18-2009 4:39 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Percy
03-18-2009 8:50 AM


For what its worth, in response to my very short invitation I got a rather long response. The short version is that Kelly is not interested in debating this at this time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Percy, posted 03-18-2009 8:50 AM Percy has not replied

  
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