From:    Usenet                                 
To:      All                                    Msg #95, Feb-02-93 09:10AM
Subject: Creation Research Facilities

Organization: University of Lowell
From: cotera@woods.ulowell.edu
Message-ID: <1993Feb2.121007.1@woods.ulowell.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.origins

Somebody wanted to know if Creationists were actually doing research, and
if so where.  The Creation Research Society has two research facilities,
plus another soon to be opened.  They are:

     Grand Canyon Experiment Station- Paulden, Arizona
     Grasslands Experiment Station- Weatherford, Oklahoma
     Van Andel Research Center- Chino Valley, Arizona

They do research in the following areas (and probably others too):
     Reevaluation of geology and origin of the Grand Canyon
     Limits in the variation of animal and plant populations
     Reevaluation of the fossil record
     Complete study of geological dating methods
     Origin of the universe
     Composition of ancient atmosphere

--Ray

======================================================

Imagine that!  Scientific research done by creationists.  I look
forward to seeing results published in refereed scientific journals.
I imagine we will be treated to witnessing stunning research
techniques like the following:

(The following was written by Rob Day a couple years ago)

  One creationist, E. Norbert Smith, wanted to prove that
water-dwelling animals would have survived the flood by staying in the
water. This is a problem as there are both salt-water and fresh-water
marine organisms. (Stop me if I'm going too fast for you, Bob.)
  Smith's conjecture was that, despite the cataclysmic, overwhelming,
earth-shattering, mountain-forming (you get the idea, Bob?) deluge,
the salt water and fresh water would not have mixed completely, and
that there would have been pockets of salt water (that the saltwater
fishies would have somehow found and hung out in), and ditto for the
freshwater fishies.  Smith's attempt to prove this was to take a small
aquarium, put some sand in it, fill it partially with salt water, and
put a crab in this.  He then (in an attempt to simulate the conditions
during the cataclysmic, overwhelming, etc., etc. flood), FLOATED A
PIECE OF PAPER ON THE SALT WATER, filled the rest of tank with fresh
water and, finally, for realism, put a small goldfish in the fresh
water.        To his chagrin, he found that, after several days, the water
mixed quite thoroughly.
  Anyone with the sense of a urinal deodorizer disc would have
concluded that the experiment was a failure.  But not E. Norbert
Smith, oh no.  What Smith lacked in common sense, he made up for in
tenacity.  He repeated the experiment, this time LEAVING OUT THE FISH.
To his glee, there was a difference in salinity levels after several
days.  Success!  Vindication!  (Bozo logic).

-
Brett J. Vickers
bvickers@ics.uci.edu

=================================================================

      So it seems, from the above list, that the creation "research" is
in fact doing NO research, but merely attacking the research and methods used
by everyone else under the label "re-evaluating".  While I find this actually 
beneficial in one sense -- science is hardly perfect, and I appreciate people 
who find errors whatever their motivations -- this is not doing science or
research.  And why should I trust the evaluation of scientific research
by people who are demonstrably incapable of doing any of their own?

      Furthermore, the attempts they have made at "re-evaluating" are
clearly biased by religious pre-conceptiong, hidden agendas, and political
motivations.  An institution which REQUIRES a faith in a particular belief
system in order to carry out "research" is as much as a demonstration of
this as is necessary.

      Finally, most of these attempts at re-evaluating are limited to 
misunderstanding, misquoting, misinterpreting, and occaisionally outright
lying.  Often, the arguements are thinly veiled ad-hominem attacks on the
originators/supporters of the theories being evalutated -- witness the
"evolution leads to communism, child abuse, and tooth decay" blather 
that is often repeated here.  (Aside: a while back, someone visited the
creationist "museum" in California, and this type of attack was a common
theme.)  This sort of nonsense is not even relevant to the science that is
claimed to being evalutated.

      In short, creation science isn't science.  At least not as done
by these institutions.

>--Ray

Benjamin T. Dehner    Dept. of Physics and Astronomy 
btd@iastate.edu       Iowa State University 
                      Ames, IA 50011