donald (10/01/82)
I just had the opportunity to attend a joint lecture on Creationism vs Evolution at the University of Toronto, starring Duane Gish (Assoc. Director of the Institute for Creation Research, Ph.D. in biochemistry from UC at Berkeley) and Chris McGowan (Director of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, Assoc. Prof of Zoology at U of T, Ph.D. in zoology from London). The format was a one-hour lecture by McGowan followed by a one-hour lecture by Gish, followed by the question period. It was great! Although there were the customary exhortations to objectivity and exclusion of religious debates at the beginning, it ended as a somewhat heated argument involving Gish, McGowan, the evolutionists/scientists in the audience, and the creationist/religious part of the audience. The question period at the end was a free-for-all. Every time an embarassing point about creationism was raised we clapped and cheered (literally!) and when an embarrassing point about evolution came up the other side clapped and cheered! Cat-calls came from both sides, and the speakers themselves bombarded each other with sarcasm. (McGowan, upon hearing the chairman's announcement of a question period said, "I thought I could just start hitting him") I found McGowan to be interesting, rather flamboyant and witty, and very good on the stage. He exhibits an entertaining dry wit when lecturing about things that he thinks are obvious claptrap. On the other hand (I may be ac- cused of bias here), Gish was the image of the Christian apologist: serious and slightly evangelical. Nevertheless, he displayed wit and skill equal to McGowan. During one slide sequence on dinosaurs a slide of a baby simian came up unexpectedly and Gish said, "that's my grandson-- oops how'd that get in there?" McGowan's lecture concentrated on debunking the creationist claims made in Gish and Morrison's books, showing that the authors were not very knowledgeable about the things they were arguing about. He also went over the fossil evidence supporting evolutionary theory and how it really did support evolution rather than creation. The lecture given by Gish started off by arguing that evolution (indeed, the existence of the universe!) was contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics hence a Creator is necessary. Then he argued the improbability of life ap- pearing "at random" by itself, hence the need for a Creator. Gish was fond of quoting evolutionists' words of doubt about evolution (he never quoted any creationists-- smart move) and trying to show that evolution itself is not science (!!!), that belief in evolution was based on faith (!!!!!), and that objectively creationism was just as good a theory (!!!!!!!!!). He con- cluded with a critique of the evolutionists' interpretation of the fossil record, the many discrepancies in it, the lack of a complete family tree for man, the lack of many intermediate forms predicted by evolution, the seemingly sudden appearance of species in the fossil record. An amusing thing was the fact that the two men used some of the same examples, interpreted differently, to support their own views. I think both men made their points well, but as I am not a zoologist or paleontologist many of their statements were out of my field of competence and I had to judge them at face value. However, it surprised me that Gish, who is a scientist, would use the thermodynamic and probabilistic arguments against evolution, which are obviously silly to anyone with a passing knowledge of physics. Gish was also amazingly fond of exegesis, and he kept quoting many eminent scientists when they said things that seem to support the existence of God. I hope that Gish has a better knowledge of paleonto- logy than his knowledge of other fields would suggest. An interesting end to the evening: we had run overtime by an hour, I tried to get to Gish and McGowan but there were crowds around them. Both had to leave but many people stayed behind in little knots arguing. Myself and a physics student were making a stand against about five other religious students. Suddenly a janitor interrupted and said (in the tones of the dis- interested layman) "I agree with all of you-- now please leave" and kicked us out. Don Chan University of Toronto
davidson (10/08/82)
No, Gish's knowledge of Biology and Astronomy are no better than his knowledge of Physics. The fact that these self-named Creation Scientists continue to use the same incorrect arguments when many real scientists have taken the time to patiently explain thermodynamics, etc., shows them for what they are. Good reviews of creationism can be found in The Skeptical Inquirer, the journal of The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Greg