From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: What makes a creationist?
Date: 14 Oct 92 18:56:58 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Those who watched the vice presidential debate last night will
understand what I mean when I say that Bruce Salem has just "pulled a
Clinton" (sorry, Bill).

In article <ksiew.718902447@munagin> ksiew@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU 
     (steven kok-hsien siew) wrote:

}1) Have anyone done a psychological profile of
}   a creationist? What are his motives? 
 
To which in article <1992Oct13.031154.20914@morrow.stanford.edu>
   salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) replies:

}}	I can only judge by the people who debate here that
}}the thing that seems to characterize most of them is that they
}}are moralistic control freaks and most of them are engineers.

Then, in article <1992Oct14.040636.13833@morrow.stanford.edu>
   salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem) waffles:

>	It is funny how what I said got generalized. I never said
>that most Creationists are engineers. 

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.  You were responding to a person
who 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.  Not that I think you've made the case
that most net.creationists are engineers either...

>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).

>	Now, as for the USNET and engineers being represented as
>Creationists. It is quite true as you suggest that engineers are
>over sampled in this forum, 

I'm not even sure that's true, I was only making an educated guess. 

>but so are a disperportinate number
>of people who argue for creationism both Christian and engineers,
>in this group. 

What the hell does this mean?  "A disproportionate number of people
who argue for creationism (both Christian and engineers) are
oversampled in this group"?  Syntactically that seems to be it, but
semantically I have no idea what that sentence might mean.  Wait,
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 on par with Jim Loucks
claiming that scientists say things behind closed doors that they
would not say in public.

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

Antti claims to be.

>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.

>Any one know Ted Holden's profession?

Ted is a programmer, though I don't know his background.  

> I will
>have to dig through my archives, but I recall that most of the people
>had affiliations which were not to the sciences that best relate to
>the questions and many were engineers or software people.
>
>	You are welcome to try to disprove my assertion for the eight
>years you have been reading me.

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).  In any case, Bob Bales is the
*only* person that you've mentioned that you "know" is an engineer
(even though I previously mentioned Henley).  Instead of me disproving
your assertion, why don't we just both agree that it's groundless?  If
you get more data indicating that your assertion is correct, then
present your case.  In the mean time please stop making the assertion
because I'm going to hold you to the same standards to which you hold
Bob Bales.

>Bruce Salem

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)