Reasons for Creationist Persistence

Precisely, and not in the sense that subbie took it.I've personally witnessed what happens to creationists who are honest and sincere enough to do the necessary research. They don't last long. They soon learn that they'd been lied to and they leave the fray, sometimes also leave the faith. Or else they remain in the fray, but now as opponents of creation science.In the meantime, new suckers are indeed being born every minute. The creation science literature remains out there unchanged with all the tired old soundly-refuted false claims still intact, and now we also have a multitude of creationist web sites touting the same false claims. And every year the fresh new batch of newbies comes along to gobble up on that garbage and regurgitate it in countless forums, both on-line and off. To them it's all new and exciting and none of them realize that it was already old garbage and refuted long before they were even born. Yes, subbie, the purveyors of creation science (ie, the ICRs, the Hovinds, etc) cannot help but know that their claims are false and so they keep repeating long enough and loud enough so that they may fool the public. But these newbies, these new suckers born every minute, don't know that and they actually think that this is really great new stuff.And it can be great fun to see someone present some "brand new scientific evidence that will just blow those evolutionists away", only to find their intended mark laughing in their face, informing them how old that "brand new" claim is, and describing to them precisely why it's pure crock. Well, it can be fun if you ignore the fact that that creationist's faith has started to get blown away, to be destroyed by creation science.

Uh, excuse me. Engineering? Computer science? Aeronautics? What do those have to do with the biological sciences? Indeed, what does computer science (my own professional field, BTW) have to do with science, period? Some math. Some electrical engineering, if the guy works with embedded programming (which I do). What does evolution have to do with any of that? Besides, engineers have a reputation of being overly pragmatic and having little patience for theory -- I've been working as a software engineer alongside electrical engineers for nearly 25 years and I've seen that many times over the years.Also, what do you mean by "creationist"? Are all of the people you cite young-earth creationists who toe the ICR line? Or is it just that they believe in God the Creator? In particular, for the fields that could count (biological, geological, paleontological), exactly what qualifies those individuals as "creationist"? For example, a practicing geologist would have a hard time remaining a YEC, but that wouldn't keep him from believing in God the Creator.

Actually, jar is right. There is a problem of defining just what is meant by "creationist", which is why we had to repeatedly ask the question of milfloresta as he tap-danced around it for as long as he could."Creationist" in the most general sense does indeed mean one who believes in a supernatural creator or creators. When applied to a Judaic-Christian-Islamist, it would be one who believes in a specific supernatural entity known respectively as YHWH, God, and/or Allah. What has happened is that the YEC faction, a small subset of all creationists, has hijacked the name "creationist" and effectively denies the existence of all other creationists.As a PhD candidate, evangelical Christian Steve Schimmrich was involved in the debate as a strong opponent of "creation science". On his page, "What is a Creationist?" (No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/schimmrich/creationism.html), he wrote:

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Keeping all of the above in mind, I think it's time for Christians to reclaim the word creationists from the Biblical literalists. To be a creationist means to believe that God created the heavens and the earth and all life therein. This is the historic, orthodox Christian position and implies nothing about the age of the earth or the mechanisms (or lack thereof) of biological evolution. Let's speak of Biblical creation or young-earth creation when distinguishing the beliefs of those who accept a literal reading of Genesis.

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He created and used to run the "Science & Christianity mailing list", but that resource is no longer up. Shortly before graduation, his first children were born and his time and attention were needed elsewhere. Then he went to work teaching at a college and put a new site up again, but that also disappeared. When I was able to still contact him, I obtained permission to repost some of his web pages, which are available through this page: No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/schimmrich/index.html

Uh, Buz, did you bother to read that list?Lots of engineers. Mathematicians and computer science. MDs, psychologists, dentists, a plastic surgeon. A linguist. A philosopher. And Food Science. What the frak is "food science" and what could it possibly have to do with evolution? For that matter, what do any of those fields have to do with evolution? Why didn't you include Ralphie the bus driver? He belongs on that list just as much as those guys did.Now, in a creationist newsletter I did once see a claim printed in all seriousness, that scientists are unable to explain how food could have possibly evolved to taste good. Maybe the creationist "Food Scientists" were that source of that particular howler.How many would still be on that list if you scrubbed it of all that chaff?And what about two of the geologists, Steve Austin and John Morris. Have they ever actually worked in the field and had to deal with real geological facts? Austin's doctorate was paid for by the ICR, during which time he wrote creation-science articles under the pseudonym of Stuart Nevins (as I recall). Since earning his doctorate, he's continued to work for them where his specialty appears to be to research how to take samples that would yield bogus dates, then go out and collect those samples, submit them to a lab, and publish an article that those samples yielded bogus dates.Glenn R. Morton is not on the list, since he's a former YEC who went to work in the field as a petroleum geologist and, along with several ICR-trained geology graduates he had hired, suffered a severe crisis of faith from having to deal with rock-hard geological facts that "creation science" had taught did not exist and could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning. Shortly before being driven to the verge of atheism by "creation science", he presented his findings at an International Conference on Creationism. Among those directly challenging his presentation was John Morris who presented himself as a "petroleum geologist". Morton asked him what oil company he had worked for. Well, um, none, but Morris did teach a university course on petroleum geology for one semester.What's the story on the other geologists in that list?Also, how many of those doctorates are real? I notice that Harold Slusher is on that list; his doctorate is honorary. When I looked, it wasn't even mentioned by the University of Texas at El Paso where he teaches in the Physics department (and doing a lousy job of it, according to one of his students who has contacted me).Now, Dr. Kurt Wise is a palaeontologist who had studied under Stephen J. Gould. He had been a YEC since childhood. In an interview with him posted years ago on Answers in Genesis (I don't know if it's still there), he stated that his belief in YEC and rejection of evolution is explicitly based on his faith in the Bible. He stated that if you just look at the scientific evidence then it overwhelmingly supports evolution and cries out for evolution. But because he'd have to cut so much out of the Bible were evolution true (one day he did literally take a pair of scissors to a bible), he has to reject evolution. Despite the evidence. Kurt Wise (no relation to myself, BTW) had long had a reputation of being one of the few honest creationists and often had to take his fellow creationists to task for the falsehood of their claims. It seems that he has since allied himself with the ICR, so I don't know how well he has been able to retain his honesty and integrity.

And if he bites you, then you become a zombie too.

I don't at all doubt that they do exist, serious practicing scientists who are creationists, perhaps even YECs, and are doing serious scientific research attempting to support their beliefs. Honest and sincere ones, even. The thing is that we will almost never hear about them.The thing with "creation science" is that it operates by different rules than science does and measures success entirely differently. I have a page under construction, based on a discussion in another forum long ago, that compares scientists and creationists; it's at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/cs_vs_sci.html. Basically, "creation science" measures success by how convincing a claim sounds, not on whether it's the least bit true. The more sensational it sounds, the better. And the creationist who can deliver these sensational convincing-sounding arguments will develop a large creationist following. And he will never be censured by the creationist community for shoddy scholarship or for lying, but rather for any theological irregularities.A scientist is more concerned with learning how nature works and will work harder to verify his data, his results, and the results of other scientists' research upon which he's basing his own research. When he publishes, he will be forthcoming with as much information as he can provide, in part so that other scientists basing their research on his paper will be able to verify his results. A scientist will be censured for shoddy scholarship, shoddy research, and most definitely for lying; his particular theology is of no interest to the scientific community.The reason why we will almost never hear about the honest creationist scientists is because they are playing by the rules of science. When they publish in the creation science literature, they will be more cautious than their showboat brethern and so will not draw as much attention nor as great a following. By the creationist community's own criteria for success, they are not successful. It's the liars and the charlatans who are the glowing successes.So, while creationist scientists undoubtedly do exist, that does not negate the fact that "creation science" and real science are totally incompatible.

No, not pride. Fear.If they are wrong, then the Bible is false and God doesn't exist. They cannot let anyone discover that they are wrong, most especially themselves.If they really investigated their own claims or learned enough to understand the subjects they're using, then they would discover that those claims are deceptively false and that the "evidences" they claim to have simply does not exist. They cannot allow themselves to make that discovery.I started investigating "creation science" in 1981 and discussing it online in the late 1980's. One of the worst things I could possibly do to a creationist, something that was virtually guaranteed to enrage him, was to take his claim seriously and try to examine and discuss it with him. They really hate that.I had a friend like that at church (he's still there; I'm the one who's inactive right now). He used to be a fundamentalist Christian and as one he had to turn a blind eye to the things all around him every day that contradicted his beliefs. Finally, he found that he didn't have the strength to maintain the growing burden of constant self-deception. So he critically examined Christianity and now he is, as he described himself, "a complete atheist and a total humanist". And very happy now.

Well, of course they believe that they are absolutely right and the Apple in God's Eye. And with all the adoring fans that the creationist leader have, all of them heaping praise on them, their egos are going to kick in. It would take an exceptional person to remain humble when given such star treatment and we all know that they are far from exceptional.But still, a strong motivator for keeping themselves and their followers ignorant of the truth is that they have a very strong vested interest in maintaining that ignorance.For example, Hovind has made claims that at the rate that the sun is losing mass (5 million tons each second) as it "burns its fuel", then 5 billion years ago it would have been so massive that it would have "suck[ed] the earth in". He also tied this in with the standard "shrinking sun" claim, giving this as one of the things causing that shrinkage.Sounds impressive and I'm sure that all his followers are very impressed. But if we do the math then we find that at that rate (which is essentially correct; a tiny bit high, but not unreasonably so) then in 5 billion years the sun would have only lost a few thousandths of one percent of its original mass. Negligible mass loss resulting in neglibible change in the sun's gravity which would have changed the earth's orbit by less than 100,000 mile. By comparison, the eccentricity of the earth's orbit causes our distance from the sun to change by 3 million miles within each year; we are closest to the sun a couple days after New Year's, during the height of winter.I emailed Hovind several times asking him about this claim and asking for the mass that he had calculated for the ancient sun and how he had arrived at those figures. He did everything he could to avoid the question, even to the point of twice trying to pick a fight with me over my AOL screenname, DWise1.The only conclusion I could make was that he was already aware that his claim was bogus, but he wanted to protect it for further use on his victims.

Excuse me, Buz, but what the hell are you talking about!? And why are you quoting somebody else and falsely claim those words to be mine?I do not recall ever having written any of what you attributed to me, nor could I find any of it in the message that you are allegedly responding to.I have no patience with false accusations. Straighten up this mess that you just made. Turn to, mister!Edited by dwise1, : cleaned up HTML