Article 26281 of talk.origins:
From: zuber_rg@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert G Zuber)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.origins
Subject: Hey, Morris and Whitcomb, God is looking!  :)
Message-ID: <1992May24.130634.6921@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Date: 24 May 92 13:06:34 GMT
References: <18033@plains.NoDak.edu>
<RLK.92May23095913@underprize.think.com> <18037@plains.NoDak.edu>
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Lines: 85

In article <18037@plains.NoDak.edu> ortmann@plains.NoDak.edu (Daniel Ortmann) writes:

>"do it right" be sure you have evidence.  We are talking of high caliber
>scientists, who happen to be Christians and creationists.  These people
>(also myself) have great moral accountability to be honest and
>*guileless*.  Any Christian who tries to falsify evidence has to face
>God.  Even when no one else is looking, God is.

	Incredible! As you said, 'Any Christian who tries to falsify
evidence has to face God'. Will you accept the following as 'falsifying
evidence'?

-----------
	I'm quoting a second-hand source, so flame me if you will. I
will, however, at least list the primary sources so you can check
yourself. The point here is about creationist misquoting, nothing else.
The following is from source [1] (the second-hand one).

=======================
	QUESTION: According to creationists, there are plenty of places
where the fossils are in the wrong order for evolution. This must mean
geologists have to assume evolution so as to arrange the geological time
scale so as to date the fossils so as to erect an evolutionary sequence
so as to prove evolution, thereby reasoning in a vicious circle. When
the fossils are in the wrong order, geologists apparently assume the
"older" rocks were shoved on top of the younger ones (thrust faulting),
or else that the strata were overturned (recumbent folds), even though
there is no physical evidence for these processes. In particular,
Whitcomb and Morris [2] maintain the physical evidence proves the Lewis
Overthrust and Heart Mountain Overthrust never slid an inch. How do you
reply?

	ANSWER: Whitcomb and Morris, again, quote their sources badly
out of context. There is plenty of physical evidence having nothing to
do with fossils or evolution that show thrust faulting to be very real.
Let us consider the Lewis Overthrust and Heart Mountain Overthrust [I've
deleted the Heart Mountain bit] in some detail.

	The Lewis Overthrust of Glacier National Park, Montana, consists
of the deformed Precambrian limestones of the Belt Formation that were
shoved along a horizontal thrust fault on top of much younger (but
viciously crumpled) Cretaceous shales. ...[deletion]... Ross and Rezak
[3] wrote in their article about the Lewis Overthrust that the rocks
along the thrust fault are badly crumpled, but Whitcomb and Morris (p.
187) lift the following words from this article:

	"Most visitors, especially those who stay on the roads, get the
impression that the Belt strata are undisturbed and lie almost as flat
today as they did when deposited in the sea which vanished so many
million years ago."

But if we read the rest of Ross's and Rezak's paragraph, we find that
Whitcomb and Morris quoted it out of context:

	".... so many million years ago. Actually, they are folded, and
in certain places, they are intensely so. From the points on and near
the trails in the park, it is possible to observe places where the Belt
series, as revealed in outcrops on ridges, cliffs, and canyon walls, are
folded and crumpled almost as intricately as the soft younger strata in
the mountains south of the park and in the Great Plains adjoining the
park to the east."

Ross and Rezak repeatedly show how "crushed and crumpled" the rocks in
the thrust fault are:

	"The intricate crumpling and crushing in the immediate vicinity
of the main overthrust, visible in localities like that near Marias
Pass, shown in figure 139, must have taken place when the heavy
overthrust slab was forced over the soft rocks beneath......"

[Two more quotations deleted]
============================

	Now it certainly *appears* that Whitcomb and Morris have
*completely* misrepresented the Ross and Rezak paper. It seems they
quoted to the effect that there was *no* evidence of overthrusting, even
though that paper appears to forcefully say the *exact* opposite! Now
it's fine if creationists want to disagree with certain conclusions if
they can back it up with evidence, but why in hell quote from a paper
that completely contradicts your view?

[1] Weber, Christopher Gregory "Common Creationist Attacks on Geology".
_Creation/Evolution_, Issue II, Fall 1980, pp. 21-22.

[2] Whitcomb, John C., and Henry M. Morris. _Genesis Flood_.
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.: Philadelphia, PA, 1961.

[3] Ross, C. P., and Richard Rezak. "The Rocks and Fossils of Glacier
National Monument". _U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper_ 294-K
(1959).

Rob Zuber


Article 26282 of talk.origins:
From: zuber_rg@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert G Zuber)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Hey, Gish, God is looking! :)
Message-ID: <1992May24.135625.9049@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Date: 24 May 92 13:56:25 GMT
References: <18033@plains.NoDak.edu>
<RLK.92May23095913@underprize.think.com> <18037@plains.NoDak.edu>
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Lines: 194

In article <18037@plains.NoDak.edu> ortmann@plains.NoDak.edu (Daniel Ortmann) writes:

>"do it right" be sure you have evidence.  We are talking of high caliber
>scientists, who happen to be Christians and creationists.  These people
>(also myself) have great moral accountability to be honest and
>*guileless*.  Any Christian who tries to falsify evidence has to face
>God.  Even when no one else is looking, God is.

	Perhpaps Daniel Ortmann can comment on the folowing. It's a bit
dated (1986), so maybe Mr. Ortmann can call Gish himself.

The following is from the _Creation/Evolution_ journal, Issue XVII (Vol.
6, No. 1) pp. 1-5

================
	"Scientific Creationism and Error" by Robert Schadewald (1986)

[deletions]

	Ironically, creationists make much of scientific errors. The
"Nebraska Man" fiasco, where the tooth of an extinct peccary was
misidentified as belonging to a primitive human, is ubiquitous in
creationist literature and debate presentations. So is the "Piltdown
Man" hoax. Indeed, creationist propagandists often present these two
scientific errors as characteristic of paleoanthropology. It is
significant that these errors were uncovered and corrected from within
the scientific community. In contrast, creationists rarely expose their
own errors, and they sometimes fail to correct them when others expose
them.

	GISH'S PROTEINS 

	Duane Gish, a protein biochemist with a Ph.D. from Berkeley, is
vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and
creationism's most well-known spokesperson. A veteran of perhaps 150
public debates and thousands of lectures and sermons on creationism,
Gish is revered among creationists as a great scientist and a tireless
fighter for the truth.  Among noncreationists, however, Gish has a
reputation for making erroneous statements and then pugnaciously
refusing to acknowledge them. One example is an unfinished epic which
might be called the tale of two proteins.

	In July 1983, the Public Broadcasting System televised an
hour-long program on creationism. One of the scientists interviewed,
biochemist Russell Doolittle, discussed the similarities between human
proteins and chimpanzee proteins. In many cases, corresponding human and
chimpanzee proteins are identical, and, in others, they differ by only a
few amino acids. This strongly suggests a common ancestry for humans and
apes. Gish was asked to comment. He replied:

	"If we look at certain proteins, yes, man then -- it can be
assumed that man is more closely related to a chimpanzee than other
things. But on the other hand, if you look at certain other proteins,
you'll find that man is more closely related to a bullforg than he is to
a chimapanzee. If you focus your attention on other proteins, you'll
find that man is more closely related to a chicken than he is to a
chimpanzee."

	I had never heard of such proteins, so I asked a few
biochemists. They hadn't either. I wrote to Gish for supporting
documentation. He ignored my first letter. In reply to my second, he
referred me to Berkeley geochronologist Garniss Curtis. I wrote to
Curtis, who replied immediately.

	Some years ago, Curtis attended a conference in Austria where he
heard that someone had found bullfrog blood proteins very similar to
human blood proteins. Curtis offered an explanatory hypothesis: the
"frog" which yielded the proteins was, he suggested, an enchanted
prince. He then predicted that the research would never be confirmed. He
was apparently correct, for nothing has been heard of the proteins
since. But Duane Gish once heard Curtis tell his little story.

	This bullfrog "documentation" (as Gish now calls it) struck me
as a joke, even by creationist standards, and Gish simply ignored his
alleged chicken proteins. In contrast, Doolittle backed his televised
claims with published protein sequence data. I wrote to Gish again
suggesting that he should be able to do the same. He didn't reply.
Indeed, he has never since replied to any of my letters.

	John W. Patterson and I attended the 1983 National Creation
Conference in Roseville, Minnesota. We had several conversations there
with Kevin Wirth, research director of Students for Origins Research
(SOR). At some point, we told him the protein story and suggested that
Gish might have lied on national television. Wirth was confident that
Gish could document his claims. He told us that, if we put our charges
in the form of a letter, he would do his best to get it published in
_Origins Research_, the SOR tabloid.

	Gish also attended the conference, and I asked him about the
proteins in the presence of several creationists. Gish tried mightily to
evade and to obfuscate, but I was firm. Doolittle provided sequence data
for human and chimpanzee proteins; Gish could do the same - *if* his
alleged chicken and bullfrog proteins really exist. Gish insisted that
they exist and promised to send me the sequences. Skeptically, I asked
him pointblank: "Will that be before hell freezes over?" He assured me
that it would. After two-and- one-half years, I still have neither
sequence data nor a report of frost in Hades.

	Shortly after the conference, Patterson and I submitted a joint
letter to _Origins Research_, briefly recounting the protein story and
concluding, "We think Gish lied on national television." We sent Gish a
copy of the letter in the same mail. During the next few months, Wirth
(and probably others at SOR) practically begged Gish to submit a reply
for publication. According to Wirth, someone at ICR, perhaps Gish
himself, responded by pressuring SOR not to publish our letter. Unlike
Gish, however, Kevin Wirth was as good as his word. The letter appeared
in the spring 1984 issue of _Origins Research_ -- with no reply from
Gish.

	The 1984 National Bible-Science Conference was held in
Cleveland, and again Patterson and I attended. Again, I asked Gish for
sequence data for his chicken and bullfrog proteins. This time, Gish
told me that any further documentation for his proteins is up to Garniss
Curtis and me.

	I next saw Gish on February, 18, 1985, when he debated
philosopher of science Philip Kitcher at the University of Minnesota.
Several days earlier, I had heralded Gish's coming (and his mythical
proteins) in a guest editorial in the student newspaper, _The Minnesota
Daily_. Kitcher alluded to the proteins early in the debate, and, in his
final remarks, he demanded that Gish either produce references or admit
that they do not exist.  Gish, of course, did neither. His closing
remarks were punctuated with sporadic cries of "Bullfrog!" from the
audience.

	That evening, Duane Gish addressed about two hundred people
assembled in a hall at the student union. During the question period,
Stan Weinberg, a founder of the Committees of Correspondence on
Evolution, stood up.  Scientists sometimes make mistakes, said Weinberg,
and, when they do, they own up to them. Had Gish ever made a mistake in
his writings and presentations?  If so, could his chicken and bullfrog
proteins have been a mistake? Gish made a remarkable reply.

	He has, indeed, made mistakes.....

[example deleted]

	Regarding the bullfrog proteins, Gish said that he relied on
Garniss Curtis for them. Perhaps Curtis was wrong. As for the chicken
proteins, Gish made a convoluted and (to a nonbiochemist) confusing
argument about chicken lysozyme. It was essentially the same answer he
had given me immediately after his debate with Kitcher, when I went
onstage and asked him once again for references. It was also the same
answer he gave two nights later......

[bombardier beetle stuff deleted]

	About the chicken lysozyme: three times in three days Gish was
challenged to produce references for chicken proteins closer to human
proteins than the corresponding chimpanzee proteins. Three times he
responded with an argument which essentially reduces to this: if human
lysozyme and lactalbumin evolved from the same precursor, as scientists
claim, then human lysozyme should be closer to human lactalbumin than to
chicken lysozyme, but it is not.

	Well, although it is true that human lysozyme is *not* closer to
human lactalbumin than to chicken lysozyme, this comes as no shock and
does not make a case for creationism. Furthermore, it doesn't at all
address the issue that we raised. We were talking about Gish's earlier
comparison of human, chimp, and chicken proteins, and Gish changed the
subject and started comparing human lysozyme to human lactalbulmin!

	Few of his creationist listeners know what lysozyme is, and
perhaps none of them knew that human and chimpanzee lysozyme are
identical and that chicken lysozyme differs from both by fifty-one out
of the 130 amino acids [1].  To one unfamiliar with biochemistry and,
especially, Gish's apologetic method's, it *sounded* like he responded
to the question. Whether by design or by some random process, Gish's
chicken lysozyme apologetic was admirably suited to deceive listeners.

	One who was taken in by it was Crockett Grabbe, a physicist with
the University of Iowa. As a result, Grabbe wrongly accused Gish of
claiming that chicken lysozyme is closer to human lysozyme than is
chimpanzee lysozyme. Gish then counterattacked, playing "blame the
victim" and pretending it was Grabbe's own fault that he was deceived
[2]. But if the chicken lysozyme apologetic fooled a professional
scientist, it is unlikely that many of the creationist listeners saw
through it.

	Gish's refusal to acknowledge the nonexistence of his chicken
protein is characteristic of ICR. Gish's boss, Henry Morris, gave Gish's
handling of the matter his tacit approval by what he said (and didn't
say) about it in his _History of Modern Creationism_. Morris refferred
to the protein incident and took a swipe at Russell Doolittle (whom he
identified as "Richard Doolittle"), but he offered no criticism of
Gish's conduct. Instead, he accused PBS of misrepresenting Gish [3]!

	Meanwhile, Gish had been obfuscating behind the scenes. The only
creationist publication to directly address the protein affair has been
_Origins Research_, which first covered the matter in its spring 1984
issue.  Then, in the fall 1985 issue, editor Dennis Wagner revisited the
controversy.  However, in his article, he (1) wrongly identified Glyn
Isaac as the source of Gish's bullfrog and (2) wrongly stated that Gish
had sent me a tape of the lecture in which Isaac supposedly made the
satement. Wagner's source, it turns out, is a February 27, 1984, letter
Gish wrote to Kevin Wirth, in which Gish apparently confused the late
Glyn Isaac (an archaeologist and authority on early stone tools) with
Garniss Curtis. He also claimed to have a tape and a transcript of the
'Isaac' (presumably Curtis) lecture, and he claimed that he had reviewed
them. In the same paragraph, Gish claimed that he had sent me his
'documentation,' and Wagner quite naturally assumed that that meant at
least the tape. But Gish sent me neither, nor has he sent copies of said
tape or transcript to others who have requested them. As with his
chicken proteins, we have only Gish's word for their existence.

	For the record, it is no longer important whether Gish's
original statements about chicken and bullfrog proteins were deceptions
or incredible blunders. It is now going on four years since the PBS
broadcast, and Gish has neither retracted his chicken statement nor
attempted to justify it.  (Obviously, the lysozyme apologetic doesn't
count, but it took Gish two-and- one-half years to come up with that!)
And if the Curtis story is all he knows about his chimpanzee protein, on
what basis did he promise to send me its sequence at the 1983 National
Bible-Science Conference? Gish has woven himself into an incredible web
of contradictions, and even some creationists now suspect that he has
been less than candid.

[rest of article deleted]
=================================

[1] Awbrey, Frank T., and Thwaites, William M. Winter 1982. "A Closer
Look at Some Biochemical Data That 'Support' Creation,"
_Creation/Evolution_, issue VII, p. 15.

[2] Gish, Duane T. August 14, 1985. "Creationism Misassailed." _Cedar
Rapids Gazette_.

[3] Morris, Henry M. 1984. _History of Modern Creationism_ (San Diego:
Master Book Publishers), p. 316.


Article 26284 of talk.origins:
From: zuber_rg@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert G Zuber)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Polystrate Trees
Message-ID: <1992May24.152708.12708@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Date: 24 May 92 15:27:08 GMT
References: <18033@plains.NoDak.edu>
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Lines: 64

In article <18033@plains.NoDak.edu> ortmann@plains.NoDak.edu (Daniel Ortmann) writes:

>E has problems with fossilized forests that were fossilized vertically
>*with* leaves still intact.  E has no alternative but to invoke a
>"catastrophe", but does so on a "local" scale.  He dare not consider

	As this is rather vague, I can only guess at what this is about.
You may want to check Strahler's "Science and Earth History" (page 221-)
for further details.

	From [1]: (I've also listed the references mentioned in [1])

	"QUESTION: Creationists like Dr. N. A. Rupke, a geologist of the
State University of Groningen in the Netherlands, claim that certain
fossil trees (which they call 'polystrate fossils') extend vertically
through many meters of strata. Rupke says they are found in such
coal-producing areas as the Ruhr region of Germany, Lancashire in
England, and Joggins in Nova Scotia.  How do you reply?

	ANSWER: The creationists again mishandle their sources. The
evidence shows that the vertical trees were really buried by flooding
rivers.

	For instance, _Scientific Creationism_ [2] quotes F. M.
Broadhurst [3] as saying:

	"It is clear that trees in position of growth are far
	from being rare in Lancashire (Teichmuller, 1956 reaches
	the same conclusion for similar trees in the Rhein-Westfalen
	Coal Measures), and presumably in all such cases there
	must have been a rapid rate of sedimentation."

However, Broadhurst has some evidence that river floods buried these
trees, evidence that the creationists do not mention. He continues:

	"... there must have been a rapid rate of sedimentation. This
	sedimentation occurred, without doubt, in water that could
	not have been fast-flowing, since the trees were left in a
	standing position. It is possible that the land surface with
	its trees was inundated by flood water (possibly on numerous
	occasions) from adjacent waterways, the flood water bringing
	with it large amounts of sediment."

He goes on to say that fossil polystrate trees are found only in the
coarse- grained rocks, but not in the fine-grained ones. The reason is
that the sediments of the latter probably did not settle fast enough to
bury the trees before they rotted away:

	"The most likely explanation of the apparent absence of
	such trees from these sediments is that the latter 
	accumulated too slowly; any trees decayed and collapsed
	before they could be enclosed by sediments."

Hence the river flood theory can explain why the trees are found upright
and why trees were preserved in some rocks but not others; the
creationist catastrophe theory cannot.
===================================

[1] Weber, Christopher Gregory "Common Creationist Attacks on Geology"
Creation/Evolution II, p. 14.

[2] "Scientifc Creationism." ed. by Henry M. Morris. General ed.
Creation- Life Publishers: San Diego, CA, 1974, p. 108

[3] Broadhurst, F. M. "Some Aspects of the Palaeoecology of Non-Marine
Faunas and Rates of Sedimentation in the Lancashire Coal Measures".
American Journal of Science, Vol. 262 (Summer, 1964), pp. 858-869.


Article 26199 of talk.origins:
From: ford@hpmcaa.mcm.hp.com (Dan Ford)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.origins
Subject: Re: I saw Duane Gish at the University of Utah last night
Message-ID: <1992May22.182848.20065@hpmcaa.mcm.hp.com>
Date: 22 May 92 18:28:48 GMT
References: <1992May22.141441.10500@city.cs>
Organization: HP Cardiology Business Unit - McMinnville, OR
Lines: 19


lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun) writes:
> 
> I don't think it is possible to convince anyone who is not already
> in agreement with the theory of evolutione. 
> 
> --
> Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
> Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889

  That statement is demonstrably false.  I used to believe that
mutations were always harmful, but after reading some biology, the
evidence compelled my to abandon that untenable position.  Following
that, and after additional investigation I also completely abandoned
young-earth creationism and opted for evolution as the best explanation
for life available.

  So I stand as a living disproof of Lionel's statement.  ;-)

Dan


Article 26267 of talk.origins:
Xref: cse.uta.edu alt.atheism:27687 talk.origins:26267
Path: cse.uta.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rpi!bu.edu!bu-bio!colby
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.origins
Subject: message to Ortmann (II)
Message-ID: <86887@bu.edu>
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In article <18037@plains.NoDak.edu> ortmann@plains.NoDak.edu (Daniel
Ortmann) writes:

>We are talking of high caliber
>scientists, who happen to be Christians and creationists.  These people
>(also myself) have great moral accountability to be honest and
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>*guileless*.

	See the paragraph below (it is from an article I wrote a while
ago). Also, I'll be waiting to see your "great moral accountability"
regarding evidence for the intellectual dishonesty of evolutionists. I
don't view slandering hard-working, honest scientists without any
evidence to back up your point as honest or guileless.

>Any Christian who tries to falsify evidence has to face
									 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>God.  Even when no one else is looking, God is.
	
	A recent issue of the journal _Evolution_ (1) has a book
review of Berra's book, "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism."
It also contains some examples of recent creationist rhetoric,
including this accusation. John Morris (2) asserts that issues of
Evolution "frequently feature articles which describe how
modern society should be shaped." These articles, according
to Morris, encourage killing "older or weaker members unable
to contribute to the good of the larger group."

	This is an outright lie by an ICR member. Would you
consider this falsifying evidence? 

Chris Colby    ---    email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu   ---
"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"

REFERENCES:

(1) Shapiro, 1991, A myth is as good as a mile, Evolution 45: 1061 -
1062

(2) Morris, 1990, Why do we marry? Back to Genesis #20, ICR, El Cajon,
C.A. (quotes taken from Shapiro's article, not the original tract)

Article 26383 of talk.origins:
From: alc@netcom.com (Chris Stassen)
Subject: Re: Let's go Gish bashing
Message-ID: <w33kgv-.alc@netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 27 May 92 14:52:27 GMT
Organization: The Lion's Den, San Jose

In article <1992May27.080058.6857@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU>
	dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
> I've tried to track down references by Gish, as I think it is possibly
> more concrete to critique his actual writings than second hand oral
> accounts of his talks.

True, however transcripts and tapes of his talks are saved.  It is
my opinion that Gish is often rather "careless" in debates -- more
so than in his printed works.  (Not that there isn't plenty of room
to criticize those as well.)

> This is what I came up with:
>[1] "Evolution, the fossils say no," Creation-Life Publ., California, 1979
>[2] "Evolution: the challenge of the fossil records," Master Books, 1985.

These are essentially the same book, the latter being an updated
version of the former.  Except in a "used book" store, you won't be
able to find [1]; The ICR's Master Books sells [2] for $8.95.

>[3] "Creationist Research," 1964-1988

This is a short book (32 pp.) which (according to the Creation
Research Society) discusses research reported in the Creation
Research Society Quarterly.  CRS sells [3] for $4.95.

>[4] "Creation Research," 1989

I couldn't find anyone selling this.

>[5] "Dinosaurs: those terrible lizards," Master Books, 1977

This is a children's book ("ages 6-12", says ICR) that is still
sold through Master Books for $10.95.

>[6] "Creation & Evolution," IVP, 1985, Ed. D. Burke.

I couldn't find anyone selling this.  The fact that it is edited
by someone else probably means that it is largely not Gish's
work.

> Any others to add to the list?

Gish shares authorship of two other current books sold by the
ICR (aimed at a "junior high through adult" level):

[7] (Bliss, Gish, Parker) _Fossils: Key to the Present_ ($5.95)
[8] (Bliss, Parker, Gish) _Origin of Life) ($5.95)

And Gish is also author of (though it is a little too expensive
for me at the moment):

[9] _The Amazing Story of Creation_ ($18.95)

The ICR is offering a sampler of pamphlets for $2.95.  When I
ordered this (two months ago), it included four copies of "Have
You Been Brainwashed" by Gish.  This is the pamphlet for which
Ian Plimer tore up Gish, in their debate a few years back.
	Plimer pointed out about a half-dozen "lies" in one small
section.  In response, Gish said that the pamphlet was old and
that some of the information was now incorrect (that is, Gish
admitted to knowing that those things were wrong).  Plimer
retorted that he had bought it (from the display of creationist
materials) on his way into the auditorium.
	The pamphlet STILL claims that man and dinosaur prints
are found together at the Paluxy River site; it STILL claims that
there are no precambrian fossils.  And the ICR STILL sells it.

This is an organization that is interested in spreading truth?
-- 
Chris Stassen                 stassen@alc.com
DISCLAIMER:  My employer's account, but not their opinions.


Article 26395 of talk.origins:
Path: cse.uta.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!sdd.hp.com!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!sunflower.bio.indiana.edu!adpeters
From: adpeters@sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Andy Peters)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Let's go Gish bashing
Message-ID: <1992May27.194023.3452@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 27 May 92 19:40:23 GMT
References: <1992May27.080058.6857@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU>
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In article <1992May27.080058.6857@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU> dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:

>I've tried to track down references by Gish, as I think it is possibly
>more concrete to critique his actual writings than second hand oral accounts of
>his talks.
>
>This is what I came up with:

[A listing of books 1-4]

>[5] "Dinosaurs: those terrible lizards," Master Books, 1977

This is the one that scares me the most.  It's a children's book!  Why does
it scare me?  Because Gish uses the same bullshit tactics to preach to
little kids as he does with adults.  Here's what the blurb on the back
of the book says:

  "No one living in the world today has ever seen a real live
	dinosaur - but did people in earlier times live with dinosaurs?
	Were dragons of ancient legends really dinosaurs?  Does the
	Bible speak about dinosaurs?  The answers are in this book!"

Gish first gives a brief overview of very basic facts about dinosaurs &
dinosaur fossils:  definition of "dinosaur," global distribution of fossils.

Then he has a section called "Where did dinosaurs come from?"  He gives one
paragraph "explaining" evolution.  His "definition" of evolution stresses
"in-between forms," and the dates "about 200 million years ago" and "about
70 million years ago."  Then he spends four paragraphs on creation:  one
paragraph on a definition, and three on biblical grounds for creation.

His next section begins, "Is there scientific evidence that Man and dinosaurs
lived at the same time?"  He stresses that if they did we would be very
unlikely to see actual fossils of them together, because of patchy
fossilization.  Then comes (you'll never guess) - the Paluxy River footprints.
He ends this section with, "Are there human footprints and dinosaur footprints
together in Paluxy River bottom? . . . We will not be able to say absolutely
sure one way or the other until more work is done."  In addition to all of
this, the illustration on this page is of a human walking next to a dinosaur,
both leaving footprints.  Scary, huh? (By the way, the latest version of this
was published in '88, and it's still on sale today - you've gotta love guys
who lie to kids)

Next comes the biblical evidence for the coexistence of man with dinosaurs -
description of the "behemoth" (Job 40: 15-24)

Then Gish gives descriptions of various kinds of dinosaurs, interspersing them
with quotes like, "If this strange creature [_Triceratops_] slowly evolved,
as evolutionists believe, then we aught to be able to find transitional forms
. . . but none are found!", and lots of talk about the "purposes" of various
structures (i.e. _Stegosaurus'_ plates).  My favorite quote from this section
is, "[again, about _Stegosaurus] Not a single such in-between form can be
found! . . . This is good evidence that these creatures did not evolve but
were created by God." (p. 25)  (The old "if evolution isn't true, our version 
of creation must be" argument - this time being used against children!)

Eventually Gish gives up all appearances of impartiality in this section,
saying things like "No in-between forms!  That's because God created them."
(p. 27)

The next section is called "Ancestors for Birds?" and says such things as
"The bird type hip suddenly appears in certain kinds of dinosaurs, with
no in-between forms showing where the bird-hip came from.  That's because
God created them!" (p. 49)

The next section is five pages entitled "Dragons and Bombardier Beetles."
Of course, this section focuses on how the Bombardier beetle ("Mr. B. B.")
couldn't have evolved his defense mechanism:  "Could evolution make all
of that happen by a zillion accidents?  No way!" (p. 55)  Of course, no
reference to the fact that this argument has been shown to be a bunch of
hooey.

The last section is "Whatever Became of the Dinosaurs?"  Gish's answer?
Weather changes caused them to go extinct.  I think we all know what his
mechanism for the weather changes is (Hint:  Starts with an F, ends with a
D, and has LOO (as in toilet) in the middle).

DISCLAIMER:  Unlike Derek (who actually did a good job of being unbiased), I
didn't separate my comments from my summary.  However, the summary parts
are as unbiased as I could make them.  In addition, I'd like to assure
everyone that all the ellipses [. . .] in the above quotations _do not_
remove anything from the meaning of the quotes.

-- 
--Andy
"So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea /  Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey. /
 And these have smaller Fleas to bite 'em, / And so proceed _ad infinitum_."
--Jonathan Swift, _On Poetry:  a Rhapsody_


Article 26723 of talk.origins:
Path: cse.uta.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!apple!apple!netcomsv!alc!stassen
From: stassen@alc.com (Chris Stassen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Bible verses and "Facts" (was: "Re: Literal Genesis")
Message-ID: <1992Jun4.165513.12201@alc.com>
Date: 4 Jun 92 16:55:13 GMT
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Nntp-Posting-Host: cortez

Chuck Maier writes:
[A lot about a number of Bible verses and how they support his reading
 of Genesis.  I'm just going to pick one example to make a more general
 point about how Chuck is reading Scripture:]
#
#   Recall we're discussing whether the N.T. writers believed in the
#   historicity of Genesis. vs. 39 reads "All flesh is not the same;
#   one KIND is human; another KIND is animal, another is fowl,
#   another is fish."
#
#   This clearly a reference to the separately created kinds, as in
#   Genesis.

I think Chuck is stretching here, badly.  This verse is far from being
in alignment with his beliefs.  I was thinking about posting it myself,
and was shocked to see a creationist produce it.  My translation says
that each is of "one flesh."

The clear meaning, under Chuck's assumption that it is a reference
to "created kinds," is that there is only *one* "kind" each of fish,
animal, and bird.  I don't know of many "creationists" who would
accept that, except maybe the old-earth variety.

# Is it any wonder any wonder that ardent evolutionists want to keep our
# schoolchildren in the dark about the facts, scientific and biblical.

I rarely stoop to responding to stuff like this, but I will make an
exception for Chuck, who usually sounds more reasonable than this.

Regarding theology, I am sure that the geocentrists could give us some
Biblical "facts" to oppose heliocentric astronomy.  Would you vote
for their inclusion in a science class?

Regarding science, here is an exercise for anyone who wants to (as
Chuck apparently does) claim that creationists have any interest in
giving honest information to people:

Call the ICR's publishing house (Master Books) at 619-448-1121.  Order
catalog item "CRESAM," a sampler of creationism pamphlets, for $2.95
(plus $3 s/h).  Read "Have You Been Brainwashed?" -- you will receive
four copies, so you can get three friends to participate and split the
costs.
	In it, you will note claims of human and dinosaur footprints
together at the Paluxy River site.  Also, note claims that the precambrian
is void of fossils.  (See below for evidence that Gish, the author of
the pamphlet and very influential in the ICR, knew the latter claim to
be false as of 1985.)

Call a noted scientific publisher, say, Sinauer or W.H. Freeman.  See
if you can find a book that uses piltdown or nebraska man to build a
case for human evolution.  You will fail.

Now, tell me:  based on the results of your exercise, which side cares
about presenting "facts"?  Which side is diligent about refusing to
propagate misproven or misleading "information"?  Why do you think 
this is so?

=======================================================================
Below is a written transcript that I made from a videotape of the 
Gish/Plimer debate in 1988.  Plimer obtained a copy of the same
pamphlet, and hammered Gish for the inaccuracies in it.
=======================================================================

These are from the video tape of the March 18, 1988 debate between Ian
Plimer and Duane Gish.  The debate took place in Australia; the video
tape has been converted to American TV format and my own copy is an
unknown-number-of-times removed from the original and is of mediocre
quality (especially the sound).
	When I am not sure of a word, it appears with a question mark
following.  Editorial remarks are in [square brackets].  All punctuation
is my own invention, which I use in an attempt to convey the flow of
the talk.

Note that Plimer, in my opinion, was overly aggressive and mean-spirited
in this debate.  I don't think that he conducted himself well during
much of the debate.  However, in my opinion he thrashed Gish mainly due
to the same pamphlet which is discussed above.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Plimer's statement during his 45-minute debate speech:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

What I want to now talk about are some of our scientific publications
which come from our (?) creationists.  The creationists will not allow
refutations by scientists.  They will not allow a process of improving
or correcting.  I use the same principle.

  [I am not sure what Plimer means by "[using] the same principle."
	Either he is saying that *he* won't allow a "process of improving
	or correcting" either, or he is saying that he is using the same
	principle of investigating creationist claims as he had been using
	earlier in his talk.]

And I use our friend's book, or booklet -- it's more like a comic --
which is called "Are You Being Brainwashed?" [Plimer gets the title wrong,
I think] I go to page 8.  There is a diagram there that says, "precambrian:
void of fossils."  That is a lie.  The precambrian is not void of fossils;
the precambrian is extremely rich in fossils.  He [Gish] has come to the
country where there are many precambrian fossils going back to 3 thousand
3 hundred million years ago.

On the same diagram, he says the "earth's crust" is "void of fossils."
That is a lie.  Every fossil found on this planet is from the earth's
crust.  That is from his book, "Are You Being Brainwashed?" page 8.
We also see on the same page, the Cambrian; a geological time period
some time ago.  And I quote, "The billions of fossils found are all of
highly complex forms of life."  That is a lie.  There on one simple
diagram we have three lies.  That is their scientific publication.
[The diagram appears to be unchanged in the current copy.]

We turn now to page 9.  And we read, "not a single indisputable
multicellular fossil has been found anywhere in the world in a rock
supposedly older than Cambrian rocks."  That is a lie.  But what (?)
we see is a repetition of these lies, all the time.  "You don't find
fossils in old rocks; you don't find fossils in old rocks; you don't
find fossils in old rocks."  And eventually someone believes them.

So we've read two or three (?) pages and we've got ourselves four
lies.  And we have an interesting situation here.

  [Plimer digresses for a while about Australian creationist Andrew
	Snelling who claimed that precambrian rocks are rich in fossils.
	I omit that section because it is not relevant to the pamphlet,
	other than in showing that some creationists contradict Gish.]

And continuing with page 9, "billions of highly complex animals...
just suddenly appear, with no signs of gradual development from lower
forms."  That is a lie.  So we now have 55 words and 5 lies.  One lie
every 11 words in his publication.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Gish's response during his 10-minute rebuttal period
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now, furthermore, Dr. Plimer quoted from my book, or little "Brainwashed"
booklet, written 17 years ago.  It's a little, ah, book, you might call
it a comic-style book, it's not written in comic terms at all, but it was
written 17 years ago.

And at that time, according to Dr. Preston Cloud, one of the world's
leading evolutionary geologists, there were no undoubted precambrian
fossils. [crowd noise]  That's what he said.  [More crowd noise]
And I quoted, many years ago, Dr. Cloud to that effect.  Because he said,
first of all, you would not know, you could not establish whether these
rocks were precambrian or cambrian...  some of these rocks [oops! -CS].
And furthermore there were many pseudo-fossils that had been discovered.

Now, since that time, as I described in my debate, there are many published
reports of micro-fossils in precambrian rocks.  And furthermore, the
Ediacaran which I did describe in my talk, is supposed to be precambrian.
I discussed all of them in my book, "Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil
Record," which was published two years ago.

  [Note here that Gish is saying that he *knows* now that there are
	precambrian fossils, and that he has known it for at least a couple
	of years.]

Why didn't Dr. Plimer consult this book?  [crowd noise] Why didn't he see
what I had written that is up to date?  To accuse me of lying is terribly,
terribly wrong.  I stated the facts as I knew them then, as Preston Cloud
and others have stated.  In this edition [waving book], 1985, 15 years
later, I have published what I described in my lecture.  Dr. Plimer
completely ignored what I said in my lecture, and what I said in my book,
to try to accuse me of lying.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Plimer's response during his 10(?)-minute rebuttal period
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[crowd noise] This little book seems to have caused a little trouble
with our friend.  It was written 17 years ago and he refuted it.  Why
is it I could buy it outside, 20 minutes ago? [crowd noise]

  [And the ICR is *still* selling it without correction or disclaimer.
	Gish got hammered for distributing the pamphlet in 1988.  He admitted
	that he knew no later than 1985 that some of the claims in it were
	false.  WHY IS THE ICR STILL SELLING IT?]

======================================================================
-- 
Chris Stassen     \    "An intelligent mind acquires knowledge,
stassen@alc.com       \    and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge."
408-943-0630        \            Proverbs 18:15


Article 27788 of talk.origins:
Path: cse.uta.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!psgrain!qiclab!nosun!hilbert!max
From: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: ICR whopper sampler
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.052333.3735@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com>
Date: 23 Jun 92 05:23:33 GMT
Sender: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb)
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Lines: 457


This is a small sampler of creationist whoppers, gleaned from talk.origins
in recent months. When I wrote that I had sent an unnamed creationist a
small sampler of ICR whoppers, many people wrote and asked for a copy.
I have much more distributed throughout my file system, and in books and on
paper at home, but have not yet had a chance to gather them together.
[plus my @#$!ing mailer seems to be broken. Sorry to those who wrote me
and got no reply...]

So many liars, so little time! Until then, here is what I had sent to
the creationist in question..

If you would like to enter your favorite creationist lie, mendacious
misquotation or attack of amnesia, please mail them to me here, and
much honor and glory will accrue to your name. Well, maybe a little.

From Rob Zuber:
...
	QUESTION: According to creationists, there are plenty of places where
the fossils are in the wrong order for evolution. This must mean geologists
have to assume evolution so as to arrange the geological time scale so as
to date the fossils so as to erect an evolutionary sequence so as to prove
evolution, thereby reasoning in a vicious circle. When the fossils are in
the wrong order, geologists apparently assume the "older" rocks were shoved
on top of the younger ones (thrust faulting), or else that the strata were
overturned (recumbent folds), even though there is no physical evidence for
these processes. In particular, Whitcomb and Morris [2] maintain the physical
evidence proves the Lewis Overthrust and Heart Mountain Overthrust never
slid an inch. How do you reply?
	ANSWER: Whitcomb and Morris, again, quote their sources badly out of
context. There is plenty of physical evidence having nothing to do with
fossils or evolution that show thrust faulting to be very real. Let us
consider the Lewis Overthrust and Heart Mountain Overthrust   [I've deleted
the Heart Mountain bit]   in some detail.
	The Lewis Overthrust of Glacier National Park, Montana, consists of
the deformed Precambrian limestones of the Belt Formation that were shoved
along a horizontal thrust fault on top of much younger (but viciously
crumpled) Cretaceous shales. ...[deletion]... Ross and Rezak [3] wrote in their
article about the Lewis Overthrust that the rocks along the thrust fault are
badly crumpled, but Whitcomb and Morris (p. 187) lift the following words  
from this article:

	"Most visitors, especially those who stay on the roads, get the 
impression that the Belt strata are undisturbed and lie almost as flat today
as they did when deposited in the sea which vanished so many million 
years ago."

But if we read the rest of Ross's and Rezak's paragraph, we find that Whitcomb
and Morris quoted it out of context:

	".... so many million years ago. Actually, they are folded, and in
certain places, they are intensely so. From the points on and near the
trails in the park, it is possible to observe places where the Belt series,
as revealed in outcrops on ridges, cliffs, and canyon walls, are folded
and crumpled almost as intricately as the soft younger strata in the 
mountains south of the park and in the Great Plains adjoining the park to
the east."

Ross and Rezak repeatedly show how "crushed and crumpled" the rocks in the
thrust fault are:

	"The intricate crumpling and crushing in the immediate vicinity of 
the main overthrust, visible in localities like that near Marias Pass, shown
in figure 139, must have taken place when the heavy overthrust slab was
forced over the soft rocks beneath......"

	Now it certainly *appears* that Whitcomb and Morris have *completely*
misrepresented the Ross and Rezak paper. It seems they quoted to the effect
that there was *no* evidence of overthrusting, even though that paper
appears to forcefully say the *exact* opposite! Now it's fine if creationists
want to disagree with certain conclusions if they can back it up with
evidence, but why in hell quote from a paper that completely contradicts your
view?

...

[2]  Whitcomb, John C., and Henry M. Morris. _Genesis Flood_. Presbyterian
and Reformed Publishing Co.: Philadelphia, PA, 1961.

[3]  Ross, C. P., and Richard Rezak. "The Rocks and Fossils of Glacier
National Monument". _U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper_ 294-K (1959).

[I have checked these -- Max]

From: lippard@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
...

By the way, it is of interest to compare the debate summaries published
in _Acts and Facts_ to the debate summaries published elsewhere.  What
follows are the summaries of the May 10, 1988 debate between Gish and
Ken Saladin which took place at Auburn University which were published,
respectively, in the August 1988 issue of _Acts and Facts_ and in the
November/December 1988 issue of the _Creation/Evolution Newsletter_.
(A transcript of the entire debate is available for $10 from the
National Center for Science Education, P.O. Box 9477, Berkeley, CA
94709-0477.  The transcript clearly shows that Gish was trounced.)

_Acts and Facts_, August 1988, pp. 2, 4:
AUBURN UNIVERSITY DEBATE

Dr. Duane Gish's opponent for the debate on the campus of Auburn University,
Auburn, Alabama, on the evening of May 10, was Dr. Kenneth Saladin,
Professor of Biology at Georgia College, Milledgeville, Georgia.  The
moderator was Dr. Cathy Hennen, Director of Debate and Assistant
Professor of Speech and Communication at Auburn University.  The debate
was jointly sponsored by the Horizons Committee and the Religious
Affairs Committee of the Auburn University Program Council.  Each
debater had 45 minutes for his initial arguments, followed by 15-minute
and 5-minute rebuttals.  Almost all of the 800 seats in the auditorium
were filled.
	Saladin, who was the first speaker, listed seven criteria of science,
and declared that creation theory failed to meet these criteria.  He
stated that belief in a deity is unscientific because it is non-falsifiable.
He then listed about ten items he claimed were taught in the Bible.  He
outlined a series of transitions involved in the origin of life, and claimed
that much of this has already been demonstrated by evolutionists.  He made
a caricature of the creationist explanation for the distribution of fossils
in sedimentary strata, projecting a slide showing trees walking uphill.
He showed a slide which portrayed a series of mammal-like reptiles with
no gaps in the series, claiming this proved that reptiles had evolved
into mammals.
	In his initial argument, Gish began by asserting that the subject of the
debate was *how* the universe and the living things on earth had come
into existence (not *when*).  He defined the general theory of evolution,
quoting Julian Huxley, and the general theory of creation.  Based on
these definitions, he then presented the scientific evidence from
thermodynamics, probability, and the fossil record.  Using a series of
slides, he illustrated the metamorphosis of the Monarch butterfly, and
challenged Saladin to explain how this process could have evolved by
any process of evolution.
	In his rebuttal, Saladin claimed that the formation of snowflakes and
crystals proves that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is no barrier to
evolution.  He argued that Dr. Charles Oxnard did not deny that
australopithecines were intermediate between apes and humans.
	In his rebuttal, Gish, displaying a photocopy of the article from
which Saladin had obtained his illustration of the series of mammal-like
reptiles, pointed out that two of the creatures were totally hypothetical,
others had hypothetical structures drawn on them, they were not arranged
in a true time sequence, and they were not drawn to scale.
	In refuting Saladin's claim that success had been accomplished in
origin-of-life experiments, Gish quoted from an article by John Keosian,
an evolutionist who has been working in this field for 30 years, in
which he asserted that claims of origin-of-life evolutionists are simply
unreal, and that experiments in this field are either irrelevant or lead
to a dead end.  He pointed out that the formation of snowflakes has no
relevance to evolution, since the processes involved go in exactly the
opposite direction to that required for the origin of life.

_Creation/Evolution Newsletter_, November/December 1988, pp. 11, 14:
THE DEBATE CIRCUIT
Saladin-Gish Debate
July 10, 1988 at Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama
Reported by Kenneth S. Saladin
Georgia College, Milledgeville, GA 31060

My second debate with Duane Gish took place before an audience of about 800
last spring at Auburn University.  It differed only in detail from out 1984
debate (see C/E N 4(4):11-12), and Gish was utterly predictable.
	In my 45-minute opening, I discussed the philosophy of science and
contrasting attributes of creationism, age of the cosmos, origin of life,
fossil stratigraphy, transitional fossils, and evidentiary examples from
embryology and atavisms.  I finished with a stern critique of creationist
credibility, with slides and quoted passages on Gish's fire-breathing
dinosaurs, Morris' non-living plants, a _Creation Research Society
Quarterly_ article on the theology of radioactivity, Gish's misquotation
of authority, and creationist "arkeology."
	My fundamental format and technique were similar to 1984.  I change
slides about every 40 seconds, but keep my graphics simple.  Many were
no more than a color photograph of a grizzly bear or a solar flare, for
example--something attractive to keep the audience alert and form a visual
association with an organism or concept under discussion.  I used one of
my students as a projectionist so he could change slides at the
appropriate moments without my calling for them.  In 1984 some audience
members commented that this created a notably smooth and effective
presentation (one was "almost mystified" at how appropriate pictures kept
coming up without my saying anything).  My principal improvement in 1988
was probably in speaking style.  I was more experienced and comfortable
before a large audience and, I felt, gave a smoother presentation.
	One new tactic I introduced to this debate was to gig Gish with tape
recordings of his statements in previous debates.  When the NCSE met in
Los Angeles in 1985, Fred Edwords debated Gish on a KABC radio talk show.
A caller asked Gish about the quest for Noah's ark, and while Gish denied
that any evidence of the ark had been found, he also denied that the ICR
sponsors expeditions to look for it.  The next evening Karl Fezer and I
visited the ICR and were entrusted by a secretary to roam their creationist
museum after hours alone.  (She asked us to lock up the ICR when we left!
See our report of this foray in C/E N 5(3):16-17.)  We listened to a
sound-slide program on Noah's ark which proudly affirmed that the ICR *does*
sponsor these expeditions.  In 1986, Gish debated David Schwimmer at the
University of Georgia, and in the Q/A period I confronted Gish with this
contradiction.  He sarcastically accused me of fabricating it and again
denied ICR involvement.
	So I entered our debate this year prepared to repay him for his sarcasm,
armed with a microcassette onto which I had dubbed the seminal portions of
the Gish-Edwords and Gish-Schwimmer debates.  I played Gish's twofold
denial over the PA system, then showed slides of several _Acts & Facts_
accounts of these expeditions, culminating with an unequivocal affirmation
of sponsorship in the November 1986 issue.  In his rebuttal, Gish seemed
a bit flustered and claimed he couldn't hear the tape I played, but
notwithstanding the slides I had just shown, he stood up and denied
sponsorship once again.  Auburn is a university with a conspicuous
contingent of faculty creationists, but perhaps because of statements like
this, Gish seemed to enjoy little credibility or support that evening.  I
was told several of his supporters got up and walked out during his
presentation, and with statements like this it was little wonder why.
	Another element in my presentation was to reveal, more assiduously than
before, Gish's misquotations of the scientific literature.  Knowing that
Gish rests much of his case on "plausible deniability," I came armed with
a veritable library of books and periodicals he commonly cites.  Gish
cites Romer (_Vertebrate Paleontology_, p. 338) to the effect that bats
appear fully developed in the middle Eocene with no trace of ancestry.
I held up Romer's book and read from an earlier chapter (p. 212), where
he says that, while bats appear fully developed *by* the middle Eocene,
in the *early* Eocene and the Paleocene they are virtually impossible to
differentiate from their insectivore ancestors.  I also attacked Gish's
misrepresentation of Gavin de Beer (_Homology: An Unsolved Problem_).  I
had this paper with me in the original as well, and read passages
diametrically opposed from what Gish avows that de Beer wrote.  My concluding
slide was the cover cartoon from _Creation/Evolution_ No. XI.
	Gish gave his usual fossilized opening statement, but he and his
audience partisans struck me as surprisingly subdued compared to other
debates of his that I've attended.  He discussed the Big Bang and Cosmic
Chicken, the hydrogen-to-humans scenario, thermodynamics, the Hoyle-
Wickramasinghe statistical argument, fossil transitions, human origins,
and the Oxnard-Zuckerman argument.  There were only two new features of
his presentation:  he dwelt at length on the supposed inexplicability of
metamorphosis in the monarch butterfly, and he gave a juvenile gloss on
Michael Denton's _Evolution: A Theory in Crisis_.  Apaprently he never
read any further than the flap of the dust jacket, and he reminded me of
a fifth-grade student trying to fake a report on a book he'd never read.
	In 1984, I worked frantically during the intermission to prepare my
first rebuttal.  This year, I had prepared a rebuttal in advance from
Gish's 1984 statement, and a card file to cover anything new.  Gish was
so true to form I had no need to prepare during the intermission, so
while he prepared his notes I went down and mingled with the audience,
distributed NCSE literature, and basked in audience adulation.
	Rebuttals were quite straightforward, and I especially enjoyed taking
apart the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe argument.  For this I used a substantive
critique of the fallacies in their statistical assumptions, as well as
a damaging overview of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's *other* biological
beliefs:  insects smarter than humans and not letting on, flu epidemics
from outer space, and Wickramasinghe's trial testimony that Gish's
views on evolution are "claptrap" and could not be supported by any
rational scientist.
	In the question/answer period the audience was surprisingly hostile
toward Gish.  Questions put to me were no more challenging than "Do you
think evolution can be harmonized with belief in God?" and "What if they
*did* find Noah's ark?"  The only one for which I had no ready answer is 
why organisms now use only the L-isomer of amino acids.  Gish was piqued
when the first questioner, Georgia State University biologist Fred Parrish,
addressed him as *Reverend* Gish and questioned his integrity as a Christian.
Others attacked his statistic "proof" of the impossibility of things which
in fact do happen, his abuse of thermodynamics, and his reliance on
popularized rather than refereed scientific literature.  In contrast to
the 1984 audience, who came in yellow buses and thumped bibles on their
knees, this audience impressed me as relatively savvy.
	To anticipate and defuse the secular humanist attack, my closing
statement focused on anticreationist opinion of clerics ranging from
John Paul II to Baptist and Episcopal leaders in Georgia.  I described
and displayed the compilation in which the Franciscan physician Ed
Friedlander has photocopied statements from Gish's literature alongside
photocopies of the sources cited by Gish to demonstrate Gish's habit
of distortion.
	Gish had the last word and retorted, "Sure there's a lot of liberal
theologians on the side of evolution.  Why wouldn't they be?  All these
liberal theologians are for ordaining homosexual ministers, for legalized
abortion.... Of *course* they're for evolution!"  The debate format did
not allow me an opportunity to come back and ask if he had meant to include
John Paul II among these "liberal theologians."
	Following the debate I was surrounded by well-wishers and chagrined
creationist students.  They were especially interested in comparing Gish's
writing with the Romer and de Beer literature, and seeing Ed Friedlander's
paper, which some people subsequently requested from me by mail.  The
creationists at my table seemed as disappointed in Gish's performance as
Democrats reviewing the last Bush-Dukakis debate.  The student organizer
seemed almost grudgingly to present me with the check for my expenses
and honorarium.  He had written to me in advance, "We will do our best
to publicize to supporters of both sides.  However, it must be realized
that Auburn is a small town in the Deep South [and will probably have] a
bias toward Dr. Gish's theory."  As it turned out, I had no complaints
about this audience, but I think Gish and the organizers were a bit
chagrined by it.
	The debate is recorded on a videotape of so-so quality, a pair of good
90-minute cassettes, and a verbatim transcript of 90+ pages.  The
transcript includes post-debate annotations and research into Gish's
literature citations.  I will send a four-page, detailed outline of the
debate (the table of contents of the transcript) free to anyone who
requests it, but I regrettably do not have the time to honor individual
requests for copies of the tapes or entire transcript.  I expect to have
these available for distribution through the NCSE by January, and
presumably their availability and price will be announced in this
newsletter.
	I wish to express my appreciation to Auburn University philosophy
professor Delos McKown, who was originally invited to confront Gish
and recommended me in his stead; and to my students who helped with
literature distribution and recording the debate.  If I can extend
any wishes to Dr. Gish, they are for good health and a long life, so
my colleagues and I will have many more opportunities to publicly
reveal the mendacity of America's most capable exponent of "scientific"
creationism.

Here's an example of creationist misquoting, from Henry Morris' book,
_Science, Scripture, and the Young Earth_, p. 12:
	  The catfish range in length from 11 to 24 cm., with a mean of 18 cm.
	Preservation is excellent.  In some specimens, even the skin and other
	soft parts, including the adipose fin, are well preserved ...
		... strongly suggests that the catfish could have been transported
	to their site of fossilization.(19)

Note 19 refers to an article in the journal _Geology_ by Buccheim and
Surdam, which says:
		The abundant and widespread occurrence of skeletons of bottom
	feeders, some with soft fleshy skin intact, strongly suggests that
	the catfish were a resident population.  It is highly improbable
	that the catfish could have been transported to their site of
	fossilization.  Experiments and observations made on various
	species of fish have shown that fish decompose and disarticulate
	after only very short distances of transport (Shafer, 1972).

Karl Fezer discovered this, and wrote a critique, which he sent to Morris
for comment.  This resulted in the following "correction" in _Acts &
Facts_ (vol. 12, no. 11, p. 6):
	 CORRECTION
	Readers who may have purchased the booklet, _Science, Scripture,
	and the Young Earth_, announced in the August issue of _Acts &
	Facts_, should make the following correction:  on page 12, delete lines 18 
	and 19.  A section which was inadvertently omitted in this quotation (from
	an article in _Geology_ by Buccheim and Surdam) inverts the authors'
	intended meaning.  However, the argument being advanced in this section
	by the booklet's author, Dr. Henry Morris, is not affected by this
	correction.  ICR writers always try diligently to quote accurately
	and in context, knowing that evolutionists are carefully watching
	their writings to ferret out any examples of misquoting which may
	occur, but this one got by.   If the authors of the quoted paper
	were embarrassed in any way by our lapse in this case, we apologize.


...  Gish has been caught on numerous occasions
spouting lies, yet he never offers retractions and his own religion
tells him that he should be honest.
	One example is Gish's "bullfrog proteins."  In 1983, in a PBS show
on creationism, Gish claimed that while humans and chimpanzees have
many proteins which are identical or differ by only a few amino acids,
there are also human proteins which are more similar to a bullfrog or
a chicken than to chimpanzees.  Gish was repeatedly pressed to produce
his evidence.  Two years later, Philip Kitcher challenged Gish to
produce his evidence or retract his claim in a debate at the University
of Minnesota.  Gish refused to respond.  Kevin Wirth of Students for
Origins Research (a pro-creationist organization) begged Gish to
respond in the pages of _Origins Research_ regarding the claim.  He
refused.  (See Robert Schadewald, "Scientific Creationism and Error,"
Creation/Evolution XVII (vol. 6, no. 1, 1986).)
	Another example involving numerous creationists is the claim that
Donald Johanson discovered "Lucy's" knee joint 2 km away from the rest
of the skeleton.  This claim was first made in the _Bible-Science Newsletter_
by Tom Willis in 1987, and has since been repeated by Walter Brown, John
Morris, Paul Taylor, Russell Arndts, and Michael Girouard.  But it's
false, apparently based on a misunderstanding at a Q&A session at the
University of Missouri attended by Willis.  Johanson *did* find a knee
joint 2 km away from "Lucy," but he never claimed that this knee joint
was "Lucy"'s.  I gave a copy of a letter from Johanson describing the
facts of the matter to Girouard in person at an ICR seminar, and he
claimed he would read it carefully and respond to any letters I wrote him.
I wrote him in December of 1989 and never received a reply.  Brown was
also informed of the facts of the matter, in both the pages of
_Creation/Evolution_ and of _Origins Research_.  In both cases he
responded with new claims about "Lucy" which had nothing to do with
the knee joint--he just ignored the issue at hand.  (_Origins Research_
didn't print my followup.)  My letter to Tom Willis received no
reply.  My letter to the _Bible-Science Newsletter_ (in response to
Arndts' more recent repetition of the false claim) went unpublished
and I received no reply...

...
	Recently there has been a claim (by Jim Loucks) that evolution writers
misquote creationists much more often than the reverse.  Jim of course has so
far failed to substantiate that claim with any evidence, while in the mean time
there have been several articles posted documenting creationist misquoting of 
evolutionary authors (for example the Eldredge and Gould case).

	Below is yet another example of creationist misquoting due to not 
checking sources.  It seems that a common tactic is to scan "friendly" papers
for quotes from "hostile" authors which contain quotes that appear to support
your position ([sarcasm on] certainly another creationist would never 
misrepresent another author right? [sarcasm off]).

The article in this case is titled _Some_Philosophical_Implications_of_the_
_Theory_of_Evolution_ from the Seventh-Day Adventist publication _Origins_ 
Vol. 3, 1976, page 39.  The author is John D. Clark.  Mr. Roy should take 
notice of this one (I believe that John Clark is the son of an Adventist 
biologist who has written several books on creationism that are used in 
Adventist schools).  This paper gives an excellent example of how creationists 
love to quote each other in a round-robin fashion without ever checking their 
sources.  Let me quote from John Clark a section that includes a quote from 
Charles Darwin's autobiography.

	Charles Darwin in his autobiography understood evolution's serious 
	implications for man.  This understanding took the form of the
	"horrid doubt".  He states:
		"But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as
		I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that
		possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such
		grand conclusions? [The grand conclusion in this context is the
		evolutionary hypothesis itself]."
	At the basis of this evolutionary idea was the theory of natural
	selection...

I would like to point out that the editorial comment in the square brackets
about the grand conclusion was put there by John Clark but in the same type and
density and inside the quote attributed to Darwin.  Now I have read Darwin's 
autobiography, and I didn't remember any references to "horrid doubts" 
(which Clark refers to in quotes at least 4 times in his paper) or even 
significant doubts about the "evolutionary hypothesis" as Clark calls it.  
Since I have his autobiography, I decided to look up the quote, so I turned 
to the reference provided by Clark to help me find it faster.  Much to my 
surprise, the footnote did not refer to Darwin's autobiography, rather the 
quote was taken from the Frontispiece to David Lack, 1961 
_Evolutionary_Theory_and_Christian_Belief:_the_unresolved_Conflict_.  Since I 
did not have this book it appeared that I would have to search my copy of 
Darwin's autobiography to find the quote, which I did.  Within about 1/2 hour 
I was able to find it (there were no references for "doubts" or "horrid doubts" 
in the index).  The quote is contained in a chapter entitled "Religious Belief" 
and had no mention of "horrid doubts" of any kind. Furthermore, this quote is 
found at the end of a long discussion where he states his inability to believe 
in the Bible or even the God of the Bible; however he did find reason to believe 
in some sort of a diety.  Let me quote with some real context:

	When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having
	an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of a man; and I
	deserve to be called a Theist.  This conclusion was strong in my mind
	about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of
	Species; and it is since that time that it has very gradually with 
	many fluctuations become weaker.  But then arises the doubt--can the
	mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind
	as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws
	such grand conclusions?  May not these be the result of the connection
	between cause and effect which strikes us as a necessary one, but 
	probably depends merely on inherited experience?  Nor must we overlook
	the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the
	minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect
	on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult
	for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off
	its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.

Nowhere is there a reference to a "horrid doubt", but more importantly, the
doubt he is referring to is not about the evolutionary hypothesis, rather he
is affirming his belief in evolution while expressing doubt regarding the 
reliability of humanity's tendency to believe in a god.  His doubt is that our 
tendency to believe in God is suspect, and even a vague belief in a deity may 
be too much.  On the next page he says "...and I for one must be content to 
remain an Agnostic."  (I don't want to start a thread on Agnosticism and 
Atheism, that's not the point.  The point is the use of Darwin's words in a
creationist paper.) If you want to look it up, be sure to get a recent edition (i.e. > 1960).

Cheers,

Dan Ford


Article 27828 of talk.origins:
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Path: cse.uta.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!darwin.sura.net!jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu!zuber_rg
From: zuber_rg@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert G Zuber)
Subject: ICR Faculty Credentials (continued)
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.234829.7777@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
References: <1992Jun23.234651.7603@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 23:48:29 GMT
Lines: 70

Mark Kuehne writes:

>Bliss, Richard B.....................Professor of Science Education
>  B.S., University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, 1953
>  M.S., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1961
>  Ed.D. (science education emphasis), University of Sarasota, 1978
						 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

	This is from R. Day's old post about his encounter his Dr. Bliss:
(anyone still have it on computer?)
===================================

	[deletions]...(In fact, in his [Bliss'] introduction earlier,
	he said of his fellow fundamentalists at ICR, "all of us
	have doctoral degrees from accredited institutions.")
	.
	.
	"Bliss' seminar poster for that event, one of which could
	be found in UMSU, advertised the good doctor as having
	"received his Ed.D. in science education from the University
	of Sarasota..." Interestingly, a quick check of Lovejoy's
	College Catalog and College Blue Book turned up no
	reference whatever to the University of Sarasota. There is
	a good reason for this, the University of Sarasota is 
	little more than a diploma mill run out of a motel room
	in Sarasota, Florida. The caption for the model photo
	states that "The rest of the campus consists of an
	office and a couple of classrooms in a building across
	the street largely occupied by Allstate Insurance."
	.
	.
	After having obviously stalled for time, Bliss finally
	gets around to addressing my original accusation
	regarding the U of S's questionable academic credentials.
	He objects to my description of the university as a
	"diploma mill" and states that the university has "all
	the rights and privileges accorded to members of the 
	Southern Association of Colleges and Universities
	(Southern Accrediting Association). Finally, I had
	something I could investigate....
	
	After having contacted the Commission on Colleges of the
	Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (not "Colleges
	and Universities" as Bliss referred to it), I spoke with
	Dr. John Sites. After supplying the correct name of his
	group, Dr. Sites made it very clear that, while the
	University of Sarasota is currently a CANDIDATE for
	accreditation, and has been for a few years now, it
	most definitely does NOT have official accreditation
	of the governing body to which Bliss himself refers.
	But there is more.
	.
	.
	I then asked Dr. Sites whether the U of S had any 
	legitimacy whatsoever in terms of official recognition.
	He explained that, in fact, the U of S is approved by
	the State Department of Education of the state of 
	Florida for teacher certification, which I understood
	to mean that degrees granted by the university could be
	applied towards teaching certificates. While this is
	something, it had nothing to do with the original
	issue of accreditation.....  Sites also explained that,
	even if U of S were to become accredited.....Bliss
	would still have no right to claim that his degree
	came from an accredited institution since, according
	to Sites, accreditation is not retroactive. It would
	appear that Bliss' claims of academic legitimacy are
	completely without foundation and are likely to remain
	that way.
=====================


