Creation Museum

Which settles our hash, once and for all . . .

Hi Chumly,

I don't mean to ignore, you. Sorry. Quite often I am not on the board for a very long period and cannot always address everyone.

You bring up the question of definitions, as Setanta has done often when he questions what do they include in their group of 'scientists'.

We don't know exactly since the article doesn't take the time to define these , but the web site that this comes from is evolutionary in perspective so it's not from 'my side' so to speak.

Apparently it was felt that these people were qualified enough to be relevant answering the question . It does not say they were 'dietitians' and 'psychologists'. That would be an unwarranted assumption. They were members of American Men and Women in Science.

A similar survey of scientists (not just readership) , with very similar results, was done by Nature (the journal) a few years back. Again , not exactly a bastion of creationism, eh?

No doubt each of these may have had a slightly different perspective of 'God' as they answered the question. That would be true, I think, in any large group of people.

The definition of 'naturalistic processes' is what Ros and I have been bantering about. I'd say that it is almost self evident that such a term would , by the way it is handled in the article, not include anything that was considered 'supernatural' or initiated , helped along, directed or re-directed by any Being of any description considered to be omnipotent, etc.

Thank you my friend. You are too kind.

If a scientist believes that God created the world, has his mind been 'interfered' with?

If a scientist believes that God was involved in the process of evolution, has his mind been 'interfered' with?

Is a scientist only doctrinally pure enough for you if he is atheist or agnostic?

If that scientist is an analytical chemist or a civil engineer, I doubt that it would have any bearing.
Were that scientist a researcher in evolution or geoscience, he may have his foundations shaken, unleass he makes his religion a source of his morality and doesnt waste too much time trying to jam a God into the evolutionary process. Cause if he did, hed find that his God is a very capricious and amoral deity whose just out for kicks. (Unless of course you firmly believe that planetary collisions and world vulcanism and meteorite impacts are part of a recipe for evolution). Even if someone were to buy that, it would be nothing less than a comedy act to try to conduct valid research

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A SYMPOSIUM ON PERMIAN EXTINCTION

"Well, late in the Permian, the Kazanian to be exact, God smote the planet with a mad amount of Sulfur dioxide from the bowels of the earth"
"What evidence do we have about the God part"
"Well none really, but weve got good evidence about Kazanian vulcanism in at least 4 large areas on the planet, so God MUST have done it"

The two concepts dont even fit together, We are able to deduce vast quantities of evidence from the left overs of the world changing events but we cant find anything about the Carpenter who did it. At least its not obvious to , (Id say) 99.999999% or scientists with the training and the skills in this arena.
Confidentially, Im used to being challenged by "dentists" who call themselves scientists in public fora where the point is a debate on Evolution v Creation. My usual comment is that they (the Creation lobby) never sends anyone really qualified because they are assigned based solely on their missionary zeal and speaking skills , not quals.

you added that last sentence as an edit RL, so really, I have no right to blast a scientist (in my field) for his extra campus beliefs. I only judge the work and its quality based upon experiment or evidence. Your question is kind of bigoted really. Would I only accept a scientists work if he (or she) were white?

By their works... Even Mike Behe and Steve Austen get published for their actual scientific work. When a paper is submitted for pub, the peer review boards dont usually start by interviewing the scientist, often their names are removed from the drafts.