Sun Tzu, Scroll III (Offensive Strategy):
(Sun Tzu The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963)
- Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
- When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
- If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."
NOTE: Fixed bug in MONKEY.EXE that was preventing it from running. It is now available for download.
This page lists links to some of the creationists with whom I have corresponded or whose web pages I have encountered. Most of them oppose and/or are highly critical of creation science.
- Glenn R. Morton.
- Glenn R. Morton used to be a young-earth creationist and had originally learned geology through creationist sources. Then when he started working as a petroleum geologist he had to deal daily with rock-hard geological facts that directly contradicted what creation science had taught him and that he had been taught could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning. This drove him to the brink of becoming an atheist and he would have gone over that brink if he hadn't arrived at an approach to attempt a scientifically accurate harmonization.
Morton's site contains several articles. Some describe some of the insurmountable geological problems of young-earth creationism. Of particular interest to the issue of the effects of creation science on faith are a growing number of testimonials of people whose faith was either lost or nearly lost because of creation science.
- Steven Schimmrich.
- Steven Schimmrich is an evangelical Christian and a Ph.D. candidate in geology. As such, he was far better qualified to evaluate the geological data than is "an evangelist who reads creationist literature and has never taken a physics or geology course in his life." As a scientist and an evangelical Christian, he is very concerned with the issues of harmonizing science and Christianity and with the detrimental effects of creation science on both science education and faith.
- Dr. Allan H. Harvey.
- Dr. Allan H. Harvey is a Christian and a scientist (Ph.D. Chemical Engineering) who had written articles that were on Schimmrich's site and which he has posted on his own site.
From his essay, "A Personal View of the Evolution Issue" [http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/evolution.html]:
The theory of evolution has been used as a tool by those arguing for atheism. However, as we have seen, this is not a valid use of the science itself; it is a philosophical extrapolation abetted by a "God of the Gaps" outlook. To reject the science because some abuse it in this manner would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Around 1800, some were using the determinism and broad explanatory success of Newton's science to advocate atheism. I don't know how churches responded, but it would have been a sad misdirection of effort for them to attack Newton's science (even though, like Darwin's science, it was not perfectly established as "fact"). Instead, the right thing in such situations is to reject the philosophical falsehood that having a scientific explanation for something in nature excludes God from being the creator and sustainer of that something.
- Ed, formerly "ceaa151b@aol.com" and then later "ixthus@mediaone.net".
- Ed started out as a creation science "addict" who one day realized how false it is (while watching a video tape of some Hovind debates) and became a "Christian of evangelical persuasion who seeks the truth of both science and the Bible". One position he voiced is that if Christians were taught the truth from the beginning, instead of creation science's contrary-to-fact claims, then their faith would not be shattered when the facts of nature become inescapable.
- Carl Drews.
- Carl Drews is a fundamentalist Christian who has never seen any conflict between his faith and science. However, he has very definite problems with creation science and the extent to which it leads other Christians to abandon truthfulness.
- Bill Morgan.
- Bill Morgan is a local creation science activist who actively uses creation science to proselytize and especially targets high schools and community colleges.
I tried to carry on a correspondence with him from May 1996 to August 1998 and again from July 2000 to May 2001. I found him to be extremely evasive and caught him in several outright lies. He even resorted to slanderous accusations against me which he refused to substantiate in any way. In short, he is a prime example of the "evil fruit" produced by creation-science-based Christianity (Matthew 7:16-20).
She writes:
This song was inspired when a friend of mine complained to me about a run-in with some Creationists, and asked "what can you say to such people?" The first words that popped out of my mouth were "humans wrote the bible. God wrote the rocks.""The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand."
This site is an invaluable resource for both sides of the issue -- especially for those who want to use creation science claims, eg for proselytizing or for winning arguments. Pro-creation-science resources are notorious for recycling old dead claims and notoriously remiss in informing you of the history of a claim, of what objections and criticisms and refutations have been raised against it, or even whether the claim had been retracted by its originator. Instead of charging in over-confidently with "brand-new evidence" that you think will blow your opponent away, you'd be better off knowing what your opponents know, that that "brand-new evidence" is actually several years old and was found to be utterly bogus. I have seen it happen and it is not a pretty sight 1. Knowing what your weaknesses are is part of Sun Tzu's advice to "know yourself."
Here are a few of the articles there that might be of interest:
1 Here is a true story to illustrate that point. About twelve years ago at The City mall (now completely rebuilt as The Block) in Orange, California, creationist Scott Alexander was hosting a series of amateur-night creation/evolution debates in which the members of the audience were invited to get up and make presentations. One young creationist (I would judge him to have been about 18 to 21 years old) got up and announced that he had some new hard science that would blow the evolutionists away: the speed of light has been slowing down! The pro-evolution half of the audience immediately burst into uncontrollable laughter. That claim of Setterfield's had already been known to them for a decade, it had been refuted many times, and they started to explain to the poor hapless creationist exactly why that claim was false. He didn't know what had hit him.
In order to verify this page's authenticity, I contacted AiG directly and asked them about it. They verified that that page is exactly what it claims to be.
"I wrote these articles because I am concerned that some Christians may be worshiping the Bible rather than worshiping Christ. These Christians may be trying to make the Bible perfect in all respects when it is not and worshiping it when they should not (Ex 20:3; Ex 34:14)."
If you saw the panel debate on PBS' "Firing Line" a few years ago, Dr. Miller was the one who said he wanted to be remembered as "the guy with the poster boards." He was also featured briefly in the last episode of PBS' recent "Evolution" series.
His site includes links to a few articles he has written, including a review of Behe's "Darwin's Black Box."
2 Before the 19 Sep 1981 Morris/Miller debate in Tampa Bay, FL, the local school board had already mandated teaching creationism. Miller did such a sterling job of beating Dr. Henry Morris of the ICR that the local school board reversed itself and put the planned creationist curriculum on permanent hold. As an example of how much you can trust the creationist literature, the report on that debate in the ICR's own newsletter, Acts & Facts, said that Dr. Morris had materially strengthened the creationist cause in Tampa.Six months later, Dr. Duane Gish had a go at Miller in Tampa and fared even worse.
"Radiometric dating--the process of determining the age of rocks from the decay of their radioactive elements--has been in widespread use for over half a century. There are over forty such techniques, each using a different radioactive element or a different way of measuring them. It has become increasingly clear that these radiometric dating techniques agree with each other and as a whole, present a coherent picture in which the earth was created a very long time ago. Many Christians are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent, and they are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among those actively involved in radiometric dating. This paper describes in relatively simple terms how some dating techniques work, how accurately the half-lives of the radioactive elements and the rock dates themselves are known, and how dates are checked with one another. In the process the paper refutes some misconceptions prevalent among Christians today."This is a well-known and respected site that creationists are frequently refered to. Just having creationists read it before a discussion on radiodating has been known to cause those creationists to either entirely change the subject or suddenly disappear.
"BECSE was founded to stop and prevent the teaching of religious doctrine at our high school, and specifically to stop the corruption of the high school’s science curriculum by fundamentalist agendas. We have used many methods to combat anti-science in the classroom, including research, web resources, public meetings, education, letters to the editor in local papers, and meetings with the School Board, the superintendent, and the high school principal."They have mainly been involved with the funny business surrounding creationist teacher Roger DeHart whom the Discovery Institute has been trying to portray as some kind of a martyred saint. They also keep a close watch on the Discovery Institute's activities.
Scott had been a very active creation science follower and propagator who used to run his own discussion board on the issue. Then one day he was finally confronted with the evidence that he had been taught could not possibly exist, a transitional form. Unable to explain it away and equally unable to ignore it, his faith completely unraveled, just as creation science had taught him must happen. Now he is strongly anti-Christian.
Ironically, that "transitional form", Archaeoraptor turned out to be a hoax. Yet it did the trick just as well as the real thing. The point is that creation science had wired his faith to self-destruct in the face of contradictory evidence, whether real, faked, or imagined.
From his "Ignorant adoration?" page:
However, I see too many signs of what I call "ignorant adoration." That’s when we blindly accept what others tell us what and how to believe. There is no reasoning to it. It’s what someone says the bible says or some kind of denominational tenet or doctrine or dogma that encourages denial of evidence (clues) and interferes with our applying our God given intellect to contemplate what the evidence tells us. I can cite dozens of examples that are obvious to me. If I did, though, I would be telling you what clues to read and how to interpret them and I would be doing for you, or to you, the very thing that I protest. I urge all of us, each of us, first to be aware, then to appreciate, then to dedicate our lives to reading the clues and learning what others have learned before us to help us apply our own intellect and reason towards a personal quest for truth within the framework of reality.
"As far as this ministry is concerned, Jesus comes before the Bible. The Bible does not come before Jesus; although the Bible is a great work and should remain a pillar of strength for the Church which it has always been. However, inerrancy and creation science (young Earth creationism, old Earth creationism, intelligent design theory) are not accepted due to the overwhelming scientific evidence against them."
Return to DWise1's Creation/Evolution Page
First uploaded on 2001 October 05.
E-Mail Address: dwise1@aol.com.