More ignorance and lies by the "Institute for Creation 'Research,'"
showing that it is okay to lie as long as one is lying for one's god.
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A surgeon looks at creation

Interview with Dr Warwick Glover, M.B. B.S., FRACS, FRCSED, by
Ken Ham

DR WARWICK GLOVER is a general surgeon working in Melbourne, Australia.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and
the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

K.H.: Dr Glover, I understand that you don't believe in evolution and
you accept the Genesis account literally. How did you come to that
position as a doctor? W.G.: I come from a family that were perhaps
Christian 'fellow travellers'-- trying to maintain a Christian ethic
but not perhaps understanding why they did. I had tended towards
Christianity hut did have trouble with this. I had been brain washed
into believing evolution but did find it difficult to understand when I
studied all the miraculous design in something like the human body. It
was hard correlating my beliefs in Christianity and Darwinian evolution
theory.

        I suppose I would say that I thought I believed in evolution,
but I could never really accept it because I couldn't actually see a
mechanism, and thought all the odds were so far-fetched. I was searching
for a way to continue Christianity without having to compromise my
science. I went through a period of a few years of reading books which
were written by evolutionists but who tended to 'can' the theory. Then I
saw an advertisement for one of the Creation Science Foundation lecture
tours. You were one of the speakers Ken. I must say that I came away
from that meeting and felt a fool. You said so many things which I knew
from my medical training were true, but I suddenly realized that I had
been brainwashed to think otherwise. From that moment--I didn't have an
'on the road to Damascus' conversion, but very quickly I think--I became
a much more devout Christian. I gave my life to the Lord and I've really
devoured anything on creation science ever since.

        I have never found any problems in correlating Christianity with
true scientific beliefs and I do spend a lot of my time discussing this
with colleagues. I of course have a great opportunity to do this with
patients and I see this as part of my vocation; to alert people to the
true meaning of life and the true meaning of science, and what the
scientific evidence represents.

Have any of your non-Christian colleagues or patients come to listen to
the claims of Christ as a result of your witnessing to them about
creation?

        Many have become interested in creation science, reading
its literature; a few have come to CSF meetings. I do know of
quite a few who I think are nearly there. I rejoice that one or
two have become complete Christians.

Does the creation area help you to communicate with them concerning
Christian things whereas previously you may not have been able to do
that?

        Markedly so. I think another area where this came up was in my
practice in dealing with a lot of cancer patients where you may have to
tell them that you are unable to cure them but you have been able to
help them. They eventually come back and ask how long they have to live
and then, amazingly, a large percentage ask my own personal views on the
meaning of life.

Would it be true to say that the majority of your colleagues would be
evolutionists, and if so do you think it is because they were
indoctrinated[sic] in this during their university training?

        I think initially that would have to he the reason. However,
most of them are very professional people dealing with technology, and
they do at times make flippant remarks about the improbability of all
these things coming about by chance. But there is that stumbling block
in their hearts. They don't want to entertain any ideas that might make
them have to confront God.

How intense was evolutionary indoctrination during your own university
training?

        I think I would have to say that it was absolute. Biology was
my favorite subject at school; the biology hooks in those days were
already heavily evolutionary. This continued in my early years of
medicine, although I would say that after first or second year in
medical training, origins does not really come into it at all. Everyone
just assumes evolution. Lecturers in biochemistry and physiology
occasionally made reference to our evolutionary past just like they
would to Newton's law of gravity.

So creation as an option is not entertained?

        No, and I think this continues into your post-graduate times. In
Australia at the moment one would have to be guarded about creationist
views to remain successful in one's position in an institution. That is
a personal opinion.

Have you ever had any discrimination because of your creationist views?

        Not discrimination of a nasty kind, just jibes and some ridicule
at times.

Can you think of anything in your university training that you were
taught dogmatically as fact about evolution that has since been totally
refuted?

        Yes, I have reviewed all the evidences for evolution which I was
taught. I have actually even retained the original biology books I used.
I have come to realize that there really isn't much fact there that
would make one think that evolution should he strongly supported. In
particular I think of the area of embryology. The falsehood that has
been spread in the community at large about the human embryo
recapitulating its evolutionary history as the embryo develops, as
evidenced by early embryos supposedly having 'gill slits'.

        Yes, I remember being taught that at school. We were taught 'ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny' and we were taught an embryo had gill
slits,that it had a tail like a reptile and had a yolk saclike a bird
and so on. Were you taught those same things?

        Yes. Ernst Haeckel and his 'biogenetic law' sort of got these
ideas rolling. Of course embryos of a wide range of mammals look similar
at various stages of development, but we should be looking at the
differences. A human embryo is always destined to become a human, an
elephant is always destined to become an elephant, and a whale is always
destined to be a whale. If we carefully study embryos at early stages we
can recognize quite easily which one is to become the elephant or the
whale or the human respectively.

So a human embryo does not have gill slits?

        A human embryo definitely does not have gill slits. We know all
embryos begin as two germ cells uniting and each of those germ cells
contributes to the DNA blueprint which causes the embryo to develop into
what it is designed to be. This follows an architect's design or
blueprint just like assembling cars in a factory. Making the analogy
with cars on a production line--there are similarities between a
Volkswagen and a Rolls Royce in the early stages of assembly, in that we
have to put on wheels, have a windscreen and a steering wheel. But a
Volkswagen is always destined to be a Volkswagen and a Rolls-Royce is
always destined to be a Rolls-Royce.

I remember being shown at school a diagram with some little
markings or something on the embryo that were said to be the
'gill slits'. If they are not gill slits, what are they?

        Early embryos have what we call pharyngeal pouches,
or branchial pouches. Fishes have a branchial apparatus which develops
and gives them gills which they need. A gill is a communication between
the pharynx and the outside so that the large surface area of a gill can
absorb oxygen and excrete wastes just like human lungs do. But the human
embryo has pouches, it never has slits communicating with the outside.
From the pouches in the human we develop very important organs. For
example, the third and fourth pharyngeal pouches give rise to the
thymus gland and the parathyroid glands--both very essential
glands for immunity and calcium control respectively.

Dr Glover, do your students know about these facts, or do they
generally believe that humans have gill slits?

        I regularly instruct Monash University medical students in
their surgical training. When we are doing head and neck structures, I
put up a slide of an embryo and just ask the question: 'Does the human
embryo have gill slits'!' I find the vast majority answer that, yes, it
does.

What do you then tell them?

        I refer them hack to a standard embryological text, which is a
book called " Medical Embryology by Jan Langman [fourth edition,
Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, 1981] and in the section on head and neck
development it indicates that the grooves which are often called
branchial (gill) clefts are now properly called pharyngeal, not
branchial, he cause 'in the human embryo real gills-- branchia--are
never formed.' The associated pouches 'do not establish an open
communication with the external clefts' [p.268]. Most of them then look
at me with a blank look and consternation and we usually go on to
something else.

Have they already studied that textbook? In other words, have
they seen that textbook before?

        Yes, that is the prescribed textbook back in second and third
years. Of course I am not sure if as embryology students we read every
page of a hook, hut I do know the teachers still promulgate that false
idea, which is the reason they believe it.

So the presupposition that they have gill slits would probably
even override what they read in their textbook, it is so strong.

        I would suggest that's correct.

When the students hear that, do any of them ever comment to you
later?

        Some get frustrated and want me to get on with teaching them
surgery rather have had some positive feedback. Even this year a student
whom I taught three years ago actually sought me out, as he is now a
resident at the hospital I am work in~ at, and he said that he has never
stopped thinking about what we discussed that day. Although he is from a
very 'churchified' family I think he very shortly may well he going his
own way and following the truth--becoming a Christian. I recently lent
him Bone of Contention and Myths and Miracles, and about two weeks ago I
lent him In the Minds of Men. He gave it hack to me three days later
saying that he had read it twice and said it was a great book.

This whole idea of embryonic recapitulation was really thrown out in the
early part of this century. Haeckel admitted to having fraudulently
'doctored' his diagrams. Have you ever talked to any of the lecturers
who teach embryonic recapitulation and do they know it has been proved
wrong?

        Those I have spoken to know it has been discredited but still
cling to it because they are evolutionists. And of course it used to he
held up as being perhaps the strongest evidence; they are reluctant to
give it up. If you read Stephen J. Gould's book "Ontogeny and Phylogeny
he still says that, although he knows it is discredited, it is a nice
idea that has some substance to it.

I was also taught when I went to school that there were vestigial organs
in the human body, organs left over from our evolutionary ancestry that
we don't need. In particular I was taught about the appendix. Were you
taught this at school and at university?

        Yes, and I would say the majority of surgeons who remove the
appendix even today think that it does absolutely nothing.

Has there been much research done on the appendix to show whether or not
it does have a function?

        There has been scant written about it. The appendix seems to
receive little attention, which is actually quite amazing considering
one-third of all abdominal emergencies at any hospital would probably be
cases of acute appendicitis.

Have you done any research yourself to find out whether it has got
special functions or not to refute this idea of its being vestigial?

        Yes, I have researched papers of others on the structure of the
appendix and there have been some quite good advances made since we have
had electron microscopes and can get hold of fresh tissue and examine it
fairly quickly.

        I think the evidence indicates that the appendix is a very vital
organ. Most of its functions are probably very early in life in
embryological and fetal stages. Probably, after about four weeks of
life, it has finished its major role--other organs can take over should
it he removed subsequently. [For an excellent creationist technical
discussion see Dr Glover's article in "Ex Nihilo Technical Journal",
Vol. 3, 1988, pp. 31-38.--Ed.]

What would some of those roles be in the early weeks?

        I think we can classify them into embryological, physiological,
bacteriological and immunological, and even biochemical. The predominant
one is immunological.  The appendix is a little like the tonsil at the
upper end of the alimentary tract, with immune mechanisms concerning
bacteria that might go down the gullet. Well, the appendix is involved
in the immunity of the small bowel, to keep it sterile. Normally the
small bowel is sterile and the large bowel of course has bacteria which
we need-- they provide essential substances--and the appendix keeps some
sort of immune barrier between the surface of the bowel and the
bloodstream.

Now that you know the appendix does have some very special functions,
has that affected you as a surgeon in how you counsel people regarding
an appendix operation?

        After every appendix operation I do, when the patients
come back to my rooms to have their stitches out, I get an
opportunity to discuss what the appendix does compared with what
they have been taught-that because it is useless it is more
likely to get infected. You know, Charles Darwin stated that, and
later Darwinists said because you have it out and you are all
right, it means it does nothing, which is nonsense. You can cope
without a gall bladder, but it's far from useless.

Is it possible that the appendix has some other functions even in
adulthood that have not yet been discovered or researched?

        That is possible. In the past decade we have discovered all sorts of
hormones in the gut and different types of immune cells. Immunity is
no longer as simple as it was even 10 years ago, with divisions into
cellular and humoral immunity and now intermediate types. The appendix
obviously plays a role in this.

I have heard that in less developed countries where the diet includes
much more roughage, the incidence of appendicitis is way down. Would
that suggest that rather than getting infected a lot because it is
useless, maybe it has something to do with the fact that we have changed
our lifestyle?

        Yes. I think that is true. The incidence of appendicitis,
although still high is actually falling around the world and this
may relate to better dietary conditions.  In under-developed countries
with a large diet of unprocessed fibre and not much processed food, the
incidence is markedly decreased.

Tell me Dr Glover, were you taught similar things about other
organs as you were the appendix?

        Another embryological organ we were taught about was the yolk
sac being a remnant of a true yolk sac when we were once like a bird.
Well, of course as we know all germ plasm and all blood stem-cells for
the blood to form in the bone marrow come from cells in the yolk sac.
This is a case of an Architect using economy of structure for different
purposes.  The yolk sac is used for storing yolk in a bird and a similar
structure is used for giving rise to germ cells and blood stem-cells in
a human embryo. It is actually a sign of a thoughtful and all wise
Architect, for we are 'fearfully and wonderfully made'.

With so much information now coming from creation organizations, plus
anti-evolution books from non-creationists, do you see any changes among
the students coming through that shows, even though they might be
committed to evolution, they are a bit unsure of the whole thing?

        Yes, I think this is definitely so.  I don't think that there
are going to be dramatic changes, but people in science generally are
finding it harder to believe that there is 'nothing going on out there'.
Science is becoming more metaphysical--unfortunately; in some quarters
almost mystical. I think creation science is ploughing the ground now
and will start reaping the rewards of that perhaps a decade or two down
the track.

Creation Ex Nihilo, Vol. 14 No. 3.

Reprinted with permission of the Institute for Creation Research, P.O.
Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021-0667 619-448-0900.

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