knotts@hplabsb.UUCP (Tom Knotts) (10/13/84)
Here is something of interest which appears in the October issue
of _BASIS_ (Bay Area Skeptics Information Sheet).
"Creation is not merely a religious doctrine of only peripheral
importance, as many people (even many evangelical Christians) seem to
assume. Rather, it is the basis of all true science, of true Americanism,
and true Christianity. Evolutionism, on the other hand, is actually a
pseudoscience masquarading as a science. As such, it has been acclaimed
as the 'scientific' foundation off atheism, humanism, communism, fascism,
imperialism, racism, laissez-faire capitalism, and a variety of cultic,
ethnic, and so-called liberal religions, by the respective founders and
advocates of these systems. The creation/evolution issue is, in a very real
sense, the most fundamental issue of all.
--Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
Istitute fo Creation Research (sic)."
So Mr. Morris.... oh, excuse me....Dr. Morris thinks that evolution is a
"pseudoscience masquarading as a science". Let me quote from another issue
of Creation/Evolution:
"Some years ago, NASA released the first deep-space photographs of the
beatiful cloud-swirled blue-green agate we call earth. A reporter showed
them to the late Samuel Shenton, then president of International Flat Earth
Research Society. Shenton studied it for a moment and said, 'It's easy to
see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye.'
Well-trained eyes (and minds) are characteristic of pseudoscientists.
Shenton rejected the spherical earth as conflicting with a literal inter-
pretation of the Bible, and he trained his eyes and his mind to reject
evidence that contradicted his view. Scientific creationists must similarly
train their minds to reject the overlwelming evidence from geology, biology,
physics, and astronomy which contradicts their interpretation of the Bible.
....Pseudoscience differs from science in several fundamental ways but
most notably in its attitude toward hypothesis testing. In science, hypotheses
are ideas proposed to explain the facts, and they're not considered much
good unless they can survive rigorous tests. In pseudoscience, hypotheses
are erected as defenses against the facts. Pseudoscientists frequently
offer hypotheses flatly contradicted by well-known facts which can be
ignores only by well-trained minds...."
Will the real Pseudoscientist please stand up. I'll admit that there
is a lot about the origins of life which we don't yet understand. (Generic
deity) only knows how quick the creationists are to point out the weaknesses
of evolutionary theory. But there isn't a shred of evidence that backs up
the Biblical creation 'theory' as far as I can tell. (I'm still waiting for
some from the creationists, but I'm not holding my breath).
Tom Knotts