The Long War against God-Henry Morris, part 5 of 6

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I have debated with Ark Times Bloggers many times in the past on many different subjects. Here are some of the subjects: communism, morality, origin of evil, and the Tea Party. I have always loved to post about evolution and I have had a chance in the past to correspond with scientists such as Carl Sagan and George Wald and also had the opportunity to write reviews of science related books that were published.

Recently I got into the subject of evolution on the Ark Times Blogand the subject came up on the Ark Times Blog. I go by the username “Saline Republican”:

The person using the username Olddoc asserted on March 18, 2013:

Plainjim, You have a good point (though actually I respect Ben Stein’s request for tolerance) but I have to speak up because there REALLY are people who don’t believe in evolution and 99.9999999% of them live in the US and almost uniformly get most of their science from those academic academies called “church”.

Almost no one else in the ENTIRE WORLD, not even in the Vatican, rallies to oppose evolution.

So prevalent is that attitude that there is a prominent private school in WLR, that simply goes from chapter 5 to 7 to avoid even mentioning evolution, selection, Darwin, etc.

The wonderful thing about science is that takes into account all the fraud, misinterpretation, wild ass guesses, math errors and weights them and refines the theory as the facts are discovered.

R acts like those changes prove the flaws but in reality they are really the beauty of science. Form a theory, observe or test the data, refine the theory, test some more.

Gravity – we’ve know a lot of the theory, but when someone finds out exactly how Earth is able to tug on the Moon, we modify what we theorize. It may be a small or a radical change, but it doesn’t threaten to make Newton “wrong”

I replied on March 18, 2013:

Olddoc, I am glad you mentioned Isaac Newton. Dr. Larry Vardiman noted:

Isaac Newton is recognized today by almost all scientists to have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, scientist who ever lived. His breadth of knowledge, his ability to analyze and synthesize the physical world, his development and use of the calculus, his formulation of the three laws of motion, and the expression of the law of gravitation have been unequaled by any other scientist before or since. Yet, it is not widely known that Newton was also a Christian and a Bible scholar. He studied the Bible diligently and wrote commentaries on portions of scripture, such as his monograph on the book of Daniel. He clearly believed that God is the Creator and sustainer of our universe. Misunderstanding the source of Newton’s creativity, some critics have suggested that Newton would have been more productive if he had not wasted so much time studying and writing about the Bible.

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Dr.Herny Morris observed:
One of the self-serving arguments of modern evolutionists is their rather arrogant claim that creationist scientists are not real scientists. No matter that a large number of creationists have earned authentic Ph.D. degrees in science, hold responsible scientific positions and have published numerous scientific articles and books—if they are creationists, they are not true scientists! In a Letter-to-the-Editor, Steven Schafersman, of Rice University’s Department of Geology, says, for example: “I dispute Henry Morris’s claim that thousands of scientists are creationists. No scientist today questions the past and present occurrence of evolution in the organic world. Those ‘thousands of creationists’ with legitimate post-graduate degrees and other appropriate credentials are not scientists, precisely because they have abandoned the scientific method and the scientific attitude, criteria far more crucial to the definition of scientist than the location or duration of one’s training or the identity of one’s employer” (Geotimes, August 1981, P. 11).

Thus modern creationists are conveniently excluded as scientists merely by definition! Science does not mean “knowledge” or “truth,” or “facts,” as we used to think, but “naturalism” or “materialism,” according to this new definition. The very possibility of a Creator is prohibited by majority vote of the scientific fraternity, and one who still wishes to believe in God must forfeit his membership.

Well, no matter. At least we creationist scientists can take comfort in the fact that many of the greatest scientists of the past were creationists and for that matter, were also Bible-believing Christians, men who believed in the inspiration and authority of the Bible, as well as in the deity and saving work of Jesus Christ. They believed that God had supernaturally created all things, each with its own complex structure for its own unique purpose. They believed that, as scientists, they were “thinking God’s thoughts after Him,” learning to understand and control the laws and processes of nature for God’s glory and man’s good. They believed and practiced science in exactly the same way that modern creationist scientists do.

And somehow this attitude did not hinder them in their commitment to the “scientific method.” In fact one of them, Sir Francis Bacon, is credited with formulating and establishing the scientific method! They seem also to have been able to maintain a proper “scientific attitude,” for it was these men (Newton, Pasteur, Linnaeus, Faraday, Pascal, Lord Kelvin, Maxwell, Kepler, etc.) whose researches and analyses led to the very laws and concepts of science which brought about our modern scientific age. The mechanistic scientists of the present are dwarfed in comparison to these intellectual giants of the past. Even the achievements of an Einstein (not to mention Darwin!) are trivial in comparison. The real breakthroughs, the new fields, the most beneficial discoveries of science were certainly not delayed (in fact probably were hastened) by the creationist motivations of these great founders of modern science.

TABLE I
SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES ESTABLISHED
BY CREATIONIST SCIENTISTS

DISCIPLINE SCIENTIST
ANTISEPTIC SURGERY JOSEPH LISTER (1827-1912)
BACTERIOLOGY LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
CALCULUS ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
CELESTIAL MECHANICS JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)
CHEMISTRY ROBERT BOYLE (1627-1691)
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY GEORGES CUVIER (1769-1832)
COMPUTER SCIENCE CHARLES BABBAGE (1792-1871)
DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS LORD RAYLEIGH (1842-1919)
DYNAMICS ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
ELECTRONICS JOHN AMBROSE FLEMING (1849-1945)
ELECTRODYNAMICS JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (1831-1879)
ELECTRO-MAGNETICS MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
ENERGETICS LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
ENTOMOLOGY OF LIVING INSECTS HENRI FABRE (1823-1915)
FIELD THEORY MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
FLUID MECHANICS GEORGE STOKES (1819-1903)
GALACTIC ASTRONOMY WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822)
GAS DYNAMICS ROBERT BOYLE (1627-1691)
GENETICS GREGOR MENDEL (1822-1884)
GLACIAL GEOLOGY LOUIS AGASSIZ (1807-1873)
GYNECOLOGY JAMES SIMPSON (1811-1870)
HYDRAULICS LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)
HYDROGRAPHY MATTHEW MAURY (1806-1873)
HYDROSTATICS BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662)
ICHTHYOLOGY LOUIS AGASSIZ (1807-1873)
ISOTOPIC CHEMISTRY WILLIAM RAMSAY (1852-1916)
MODEL ANALYSIS LORD RAYLEIGH (1842-1919)
NATURAL HISTORY JOHN RAY (1627-1705)
NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY BERNHARD RIEMANN (1826- 1866)
OCEANOGRAPHY MATTHEW MAURY (1806-1873)
OPTICAL MINERALOGY DAVID BREWSTER (1781-1868)
PALEONTOLOGY JOHN WOODWARD (1665-1728)
PATHOLOGY RUDOLPH VIRCHOW (1821-1902)
PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)
REVERSIBLE THERMODYNAMICS JAMES JOULE (1818-1889)
STATISTICAL THERMODYNAMICS JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (1831-1879)
STRATIGRAPHY NICHOLAS STENO (1631-1686)
SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY CAROLUS LINNAEUS (1707-1778)
THERMODYNAMICS LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
THERMOKINETICS HUMPHREY DAVY (1778-1829)
VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY GEORGES CUVIER (1769-1832)

TABLE II
NOTABLE INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES
OR DEVELOPMENTS BY CREATIONIST SCIENTISTS

CONTRIBUTION SCIENTIST
ABSOLUTE TEMPERATURE SCALE LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
ACTUARIAL TABLES CHARLES BABBAGE (1792-1871)
BAROMETER BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662)
BIOGENESIS LAW LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
CALCULATING MACHINE CHARLES BABBAGE (1792-1871)
CHLOROFORM JAMES SIMPSON (1811-1870)
CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM CAROLUS LINNAEUS (1707-1778)
DOUBLE STARS WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822)
ELECTRIC GENERATOR MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
ELECTRIC MOTOR JOSEPH HENRY (1797-1878)
EPHEMERIS TABLES JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)
FERMENTATION CONTROL LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
GALVANOMETER JOSEPH HENRY (1797-1878)
GLOBAL STAR CATALOG JOHN HERSCHEL (1792-1871)
INERT GASES WILLIAM RAMSAY (1852-1916)
KALEIDOSCOPE DAVID BREWSTER (1781-1868)
LAW OF GRAVITY ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
MINE SAFETY LAMP HUMPHREY DAVY (1778-1829)
PASTEURIZATION LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
REFLECTING TELESCOPE ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
SCIENTIFIC METHOD FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)
SELF-INDUCTION JOSEPH HENRY (1797-1878)
TELEGRAPH SAMUEL F.B. MORSE (1791-1872)
THERMIONIC VALVE AMBROSE FLEMING (1849-1945)
TRANS-ATLANTIC CABLE LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
VACCINATION & IMMUNIZATION LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)