From: James J. Lippard
To: All Msg #237, Jul-13-93 04:58PM
Subject: Re: Henry Morris Lecture
Organization: University of Arizona
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Message-ID: <13JUL199317582478@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
In article ,
trott@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Richard Trott) writes...
>Well, there will be a small t.o. contingent at this Sunday's Henry
>Morris lecture in northeast Maryland. In the event that we get to ask
>him a question, I would like to know what sorts of things you t.o.
>folks can recommend. James Acker has sent me a bunch of suggestions
>about the whole Ham/Racism thing. Anyone got any other ideas? (If I
>can get enough questions together, I'll try to get up the chutzpah to
>ask for an interview.)
Ask if he still defends his population growth argument in _Scientific
Creationism_ (you should read the _C/E_ critiques, or at least Strahler's
discussion), and if not, why he hasn't removed it from his book after 17+
printings.
Ask him whether he, like Gish, believes in the existence of yetis.
(On May 10, 1988, in Gish's debate with Kenneth Saladin at Auburn
University in Alabama, Gish said in his first rebuttal that "And he
[Charles Oxnard] also refers to Lucy. He says these creatures are
*not* intermediate between ape and man, they are *not* ancestors.
Anything can walk erect for a very limited time; so can chimpanzees
and gorillas and orangutans and yetis and so forth but they don't
do it habitually. They're not made to do that." From Saladin's
transcript of the debate, available from NCSE, p. 58.)
Ask him when Steven Austin is going to publish the rest of the data
from the Grand Canyon Dating Project, which he promised to publish
by the end of 1992. (More details available via email request.)
Ask him how many rejection slips creation scientists have received from
attempts to publish their work in peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific
journals.
Ask him whether creationism is science or not. If not, why has he
previously said that it is (the quote that was posted here recently,
and the title of _Scientific Creationism_). If it is, why does the
vice president of the ICR disagree?
In his introduction to Gish's _Creation Scientists Answer Their
Critics_ (p. iv), he writes that "There are now thousands of scientists
who are creationists, and they come from every field of science. Many of
them, like myself, once believed in evolution, but are now convinced,
on the basis of abundant scientific evidence, that creationism is a far
more credible model of origins than evolution." Ask him: How many
voting members (with M.S. or Ph.D. in science) are there in the Creation
Research Society? (There are approximately 600, according to page 195
of Gish's book. If Morris's statement is true, there must be at least
1,400 more. Where are they?) Ask him: How much study had you actually
done of the evidence for evolution before you became a creationist
prior to your marriage in 1940? (Numbers' _The Creationists_, p. 193,
reports that Morris "drifted unthinkingly into evolutionism and
religious indifference" as "a youth," but after "an intense period
of soul-searching he concluded that creation had taken place in six
literal days, because the Bible clearly says so and 'God doesn't lie.'"
Perhaps Morris is "now convinced," as he says, "on the basis of
abundant scientific evidence," but he falsely implies that the
scientific evidence was the *cause* of his change of heart.)
>Are we going to be the only non-creationists there, or do skeptics
>usually come to these things in force?
The National Capitol Area Skeptics is a fairly large organization.
Perhaps some of them will show up.
Have fun. Don't get too angry.
Jim Lippard Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
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To: All Msg #89, Jul-13-93 05:32PM
Subject: How many creation scientists?
Organization: University of Arizona
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Message-ID: <13JUL199318324695@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Voting members of the Creation Research Society must have at least
a master's degree in a field of science.
In 1966, there were 200 voting members (60 with doctoral degrees).*
In 1973, there were 412 voting members.*
Today, there are "approximately 600" voting members.**
It took only seven years to add 212 voting members in the late sixties and
early seventies. It took twenty years more to add another 188 (probably
fewer, since if there were more than 600 voting members I suspect Gish
would have given the number).
* Ronald Numbers, _The Creationists_, p. 233.
** Duane Gish, _Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics_, p. 195.
