Information and Genetics

Dean Kenyon was an up-and-coming OOL researcher. He did indeed write a textbook, though it apparently did not sell well. However, when he had his religious conversion in the early 1970s and adopted creationism, he dropped off thew face of the earth, science-wise. He has failed to produce a single scientific research paper since then, his creationist essays - which do not really count - and his creationist grade-school 'text' notwithstanding.It seems to me that if all this talk of "Darwinism" shackling the mind and creationism/ID being this paradigm of freedom and open inquiry, that the opposite should have occurred - Kenyon's career should have taken off after his religious conversion. I know - the atheistic evilutionist conspiracy kept him down....No, fact is, he just stopped doing reserch.As for Parker, well, I have not met him and do not care to, but meeting someone does not make them 'right', though I have strangely found this attempt at support offered by creationists in the past, to no avail.[This message has been edited by vik, 10-08-2003]

Parker's "conversion" story is reminiscent of Steve Austin's "conversion" story...A big lie, basically. But it does impress the Faithful and strengthen their preconceived biases and prejudices.

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There is a leading scientist on the genome project who privately talked of the huge elephant in the room (intelligent design) that he has to pretend isn’t there so the funding won’t dry up or find himself pounding pavement.

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This one is actually pretty funny. It comes from a newspaper article by some conservative hack from a few years ago. It has made the rounds on the creationist internet circuit, and like a game of 'telephone', it has lost and picked up some attributes. The one constant is the "white elephant" phrase. That was in the original. In the original, the "leading scientist" was a lowly "molecular biologist" that this columnist just happened to meet on a bus (or the subway, I don't remember which). And they just happened to start a conversation, and the conversation just happened to dive immediately into creation/evolution. And this supposed molecular biologist - anonymous and imaginary, most likely - relayed the same "white elephant" story. An anonymous source with credentials just happens to support a typical conspiratorial claim of creationists. I'm sure it happens all the time.And of course, now the game of telephone is kicking in. Now, the anonymous molecular biologist is a LEADING scientist in the genome project. In a few more years, doubtless it will be a Nobel laureate.But I am sure THAT will be true, too. After all, creationists have the TRUTH on their side, and no need to embellish or fabricate stories to make it appear as though everyone else knows how 'right' they are, too.