From: mss2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Unbe Awakens
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 17:33:20 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.162754.243@bmerh85.bnr.ca> yho@utcs.utoronto.ca writes:

>That's not to say all of them carry fake credentials.  Recently there was
>  a Dr Walter Brown who gave a talk on creationism at BNR, Ottawa.  (BNR is
>  a sister company of the company I work at.  Don't know why creationism
>  has anything to do with BNR's business.)  Reportedly, he has a PhD from
>  MIT, and is the director of "Center for Scientific Creation" based in
>  Phoenix, Arizona.

	"But a PhD in _what_?  I ask because I've encountered people
with doctorates in economics or physics who let the fact of their
doctorates imply expertise in areas unrelated to their field of study.
Though even a Ph.D in a biological discipline doesn't necessarily mean
much-- many `mavericks' come from inside a field, and for every one
who's right and can force a paradigm shift, there are dozens who are
just crackpots."

  I'm still trying to find out what he has to say.
>  Maybe he can give scientific creationists a better image, since their
>  theories are mostly considered as pseudo science.  Or maybe he can't.

	"I'm inclined to doubt it.  If animal species were directly
created, the universe seems to have been designed to be misleading.
Which would be a reasonable hypothesis if the scientific creationists
were Gnostics, but just doesn't work with their predominantly
Christian beliefs.  They might be able to make a consistent hypothesis
by presuming some sort of diabolic deception, but in that case they
can't be _scientific_ creationists, since the scientific data are
suspect.  Whereas all the scientific creation literature I've read (I
had a friend who was a creationist back in high school, so I got the
chance to look at some of it) is just bad science-- deliberate
misconstructions of evidence, ignorance of recent data, and very often
a fallacy of the excluded middle plus other elementary logical flaws:
i.e. concluding that since current evolutionary theories fail to explain x, no
evolutionary theory can be correct and that therefore some version of
Biblical creationism must be correct.  Which strikes me as much like
saying that since relativity and quantum theory have some problems
being reconciled, the only possibility is Aristotelian physics.

	"This fellow may not be that crude, but the fact is that
evolution is a fairly compelling hypothesis based on quite a lot of
different sorts of evidence, such that there would have to be a _very_
good reason to entirely abandon it.  It is true that there are further
biases likely to exist against it in addition, but if creationists
want to play on the scientific playing field they have to play by
science's rules.  When it comes to first principles they can differ,
but when it comes to reasoning from the evidence they have to
establish that they have a falifiable hypothesis which fits known
facts as well or better than the currently accepted theory.  And thus
far, at least, I haven't seen any evidence that this is the case."

Michael


-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mschiffer@aal.itd.umich.edu	    Virginia (1784)