From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: What makes a creationist?
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 03:50:18 GMT

In article <93066@netnews.upenn.edu> rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) writes:
>Bruce, if you really meant to say only that "most of the creationists
>that post to the net are engineers", then I'd say that your wording
>was at the *very* least injudicious.

	Well then what should I have said? That alot of people on
the net spout off about stuff they don't know anything about, and that
many people who are programmers and engineers spout off as if they were
trained as scientists? Programmers often have meger backgrounds in science
and engineers are often very specialized in what they know of science, which
is nowhere as comprehensive that it entitles a software engineer or a
electrical engineer to speak with authority about life and earth sciences
because of the professional degree he holds. This is the same thing as
William Shockley talking about intelligence. He was the guy who invented
the transister and won the Nobel Prize in 1949, I think, for that. Even
though his knowledge of solid state physics and quantum physics was probably
surpurb, his engineer's urge to fix things let him stray far out of his
area of expertise. There is a kind of insensativity and arrogance that
I have seen in engineers, and especially EEs that I have known that
leads to the overstepping of bounds. I had met Shockley and have known
many other engineers who have gone off half cocked when they should
not have.

	Maybe what I should have said that ignorance is excusable in
humanities types who post Creationism but not in engineers who pretend
to be scientists. Is that more to your liking? That the idea that Bob
Bales' ignorance is inexcusable as is his dishonesty about the influience
of religion, BECAUSE he is an engineer who pretends to be as competant
as a geologist or biologist on the basis of being an ENGINEER. He is
not entitled to the comparison until he presents a demonstration that
he knows what biologists and geologists say.

>[someone] asked about generic creationists, not net.creationists, and your
>response reads like you think net.creationists are an unbiased sample
>of the set of all creationists.

	I didn't say this. I qualified my remarks as applying to the
net and not to Creationists at large. Do you recall the "Creationist
Credentials" discussions, and how many of the people had either mysterious
credentials or credentials in unrelated fields?

I said:

>>I recall that very few have
>>degrees in fields that relate directly to evolution, 
>
>You're probably right, but that's irrelevant to the point with which I
>took issue (as was much or your response).

	Well then, lets start there. If you are excited by my remarks
about engineering, then defending yourself, as an engineer, have become
your point, not whether Creationists know anything about biology and
geology. We can start by saying that very few are trained in those
fields. Agreed?

>maybe what you're trying to say is "A disproportionate number of
>people who argue on the net in favor of creationism are both Christian
>and engineers".  The Christian part I'll grant, the engineer part
>still seems to be an unsubstantiated assertion

	I will agree with you provisionally becuase I don't have the
facts at my fingertips, and I will provisionally retract the assertion,
but I will spend some time to research the matter.

>>I don't know of any Creationists who have posted
>>here who are biologists. 
>
>Antti claims to be.

	Is he? Does anyone know? Isn't Duane Gish a biochemist?

>>One is a physicist, and one recently who is a
>>geochemist whose professional work does not touch on the issues 
>>of this group. I know of other cases of people whose background is in
>>the earth sciences who have Creationist beliefs, but these again
>>do not relate to their work.
>
>>	Of people I can remember off the top of my head who were
>>outspoken supporters of Creationism I can recall that Bob Bales
>>is an engineer. Other names I can recall are Ken Arndt, Ken Jenkins,
>>but I don't recall that I could knew that their affiliations were
>>other than religious. 
>
>I can throw in Tricia Borawski, Clayton Chevrier, Jim Brown, James
>Paul Henley (who *is* an engineer), Steven Kellmeyer, Gabriel
>Velasco... So frigging what, Bruce?  If you don't know their
>professional training, then you have no right to make assertions about
>what it is or isn't.

	That I'll grant. Thanks for the leads. I will see what I
can find.

>>Any one know Ted Holden's profession?
>
>Ted is a programmer, though I don't know his background.  

	As before, being a programmer means nothing from the point
of view of science training. Lots of people become programmers
who didn't get or need formal scientific training.

>I've only been reading you for four, but I guessed that you were
>making the claim long before I arrived (it didn't seem like a new
>issue the first time I came across it).

	I have only posted with any frequency since Jul 1988. I
had posted a few times before that. I think that I had an argument
like this with a software engineer from somewhere on the east coast
about two years ago.

	I will agree with withold the assertion until I know more.

Bruce Salem

Newsgroups: talk.origins