DWISE1'S CREATION / EVOLUTION HOME PAGE

HARD HAT AREA

WATCH YOUR STEP

After about a three-year absence, I'm bringing my creation/evolution site back up on-line. Since I'll be reorganizing it, reverifying links, and making changes I was wanting to make, things will be fragmentary for a while, but we'll eventually get there.

Links to Site Contents

My Links Page. Links to the other pages on my site and to other sites.
My Quotes Page. Mainly from creationists that demonstrate their position and from former creationists that demonstrate the detrimental effects that "creation science" had on them.

You can contact me at:

E-Mail Address: dwise1@aol.com.

But first read this:

Far too often in the past, with sickening regularity, I have received extremely angry emails from creationists ranting against my site, yet no offense that they named ever had anything at all to do with my site nor with my position. They were flaming me (and sounded like they would have literally if they could physically get to me and a wood pile) for what they imagined I might have written, rather than for what I had actually written. To place it in the wording of the Matthew 7:20 Test, their actions are the wicked fruit produced by their theology and by their fruits we do know them all too well, unfortunately for decent folk.
If you email me regarding my site, please address what's actually there rather than what you may wish to imagine to be there. Please include some kind of reference to which page you are referring to and where in that page, which will help me immensely to answer whatever question you may have, or to clarify what you may have misunderstood.
I have a real-world example of what you should not do, A Typical Email Exchange with a Creationist. Please read it before you flame me for something I don't advocate.
For that matter, I would recommend that you read it even if you aren't going to email me. One day in re-reading it, I found that I had given a fairly comprehensive summation of my position and so decided that it would serve as a good introduction to my site. Especially since nobody seemed to be able to understand what I had posted on my site.
And by the way, if you do email me, be sure to give it a meaningful subject line, one that will tell me that your email is not just spam. So if it looks like spam (ie, with subject lines such as "" (blank), "Hi", "Re:", "Re: your website", etc.), then your email will go straight to the round file (AKA "be deleted without being opened"). Mentioning that it's my creation/evolution website would help. Mentioning the specific page in the subject line would be even better (and absolutely necessary within the message itself).
So please think before you send.

Because so many of the angry emails I had gotten from creationists clearly showed that they had no idea what I was saying nor what my position is nor what the purpose of my site was, I am laying it out for you, right here and now, as clearly as I can.

Purpose of this Site:

The subject matter of this site is the examination and critiquing of "creation science", of "creation science" claims, and of the activities, tactics, strategies, and conduct of promoters and believers in "creation science."
It is not about the physical and biological sciences per se, though it would be impossible to discuss "creation science" claims without presenting the relevent science.
Nor is this site even remotely trying to refute "creation science" in order to "prove" evolution. That is the fallacious approach upon which "creation science" is firmly based. Any position or theory must be judged on its own merits, not by attacking and eliminating opposing positions. In sharp contrast to the conclusions that "creation science" draws ("evolution is wrong, therefore our narrowly sectarian view of creation has been proven"), this site's conclusions will be: "This claim is wrong for these reasons, including how it misrepresents the relevent science (including evolution). It should not be used." This site is concerned with examining the merits of "creation science", in the course of which, as with the physical sciences, the relevent facts and concepts of evolution cannot help but be presented.
Similarly, questions concerning creationist honesty and ethics cannot help but to be raised. I do try to avoid jumping to conclusions, but then repeatedly demonstrated creationist misconduct is what it is.
Nor is this site even remotely trying to "disprove God" nor to disprove the Bible nor to promote atheism. Rather, that is what "creation science" does and teaches, that evolution and certain findings of science (eg, that the earth and universe are old) disprove God. Nowhere on this site do I ever propose that we can disprove God, nor do I attempt to critique the Bible. The existence of God and the status of the Bible are completely irrelevent to the question of truthfulness and honesty in "creation science" and in the validity of its claims.

My Position:

This section is greatly abbreviated with exposition, discussion, and examples removed for brevity.
The entire unabbreviated outline is on this page.
The links provided in the sections below will link you directly to that section's exposition, etc.
To return to this page at the location you left it, click the Left Arrow button on your browser.
Or you could remain on the outline page to read it in its entirety.

Summing up my position in one statement:
If you honestly and truly want to fight evolution, then at least do it right! Learn everything you can about evolution and then attack it, not some stupid strawman caricature of it. And do so honestly and truthfully!
By refusing to fight evolution honestly and truthfully, but rather using "creation science" instead, you are constantly shooting yourself in the foot, dooming your cause to failure and your followers to losing their faith.

That, in a nutshell, is my position. The rest is explanation.
I draw a distinction between creationism per se and "creation science."
- Creationism in general is belief in creation performed by a supernatural entity or entities; eg, as described in the first two chapters of Genesis. It is a religious belief and as such deserves the same respect as any other religious belief.
- "Creation science" is a fraud and a deliberately crafted deception.
  (follow link to read about the Two Model Approach)
  WORD USAGE NOTE AND DISCLAIMER: In this site, as in most sites and discussions, the terms creationist and even creationism are used in the narrow sense of "creation science" and followers and promoters of "creation science." It is simply easier to write and read than to constantly use a dozen or more words in every instance of the term. When I am specifically referring to "creationism" in the general, non-"creation science", sense, I endeavor to make that clear through the context.
I have no problem with creationism per se, even though I do not share such beliefs. However, I do have definite problems with "creation science."
- "Creation science" is not science, but rather pseudoscience.
  (follow link to read more)
- "Creation science" is not only pseudoscience, but it is also anti-science.
  (follow link to read more)
- "Creation science" is bad theology.
  (follow link to read more)
- "Creation science" leads to dishonest and unethical behavior and self-deception.
  (follow link to read more)
- "Creation science" destroys faith and is a major contributor to the growth and spread of atheism.
  (follow link to read more)
There is no scientific "controversy" about evolution. The whole idea that there's an "issue" or any "controversy" is a creationist fabrication that they spin out of their "evolution model", which is a grossly misrepresentative strawman caricature that has nothing to do with evolution, and through their quote-mining of scientists' writings in order to misquote and misrepresent them into appearing to reject evolution.
Nor is there any inherent conflict between science and religion. Creationists describe scientists as being atheists. While it may be that more scientists are atheists or agnostics than in other professions, nonetheless the majority of scientists are still theists of various faiths. Generations of scientists have been able to practice both their professions and their faiths with little or no conflict. One perspective that I've read is that religion tells us who created the universe to work as it does, whereas science tells us how it works; the difference is in the kinds of questions that religion and science are to answer.
Of course, when religion starts making demands of how the universe is supposed to work and in the process makes many contrary-to-fact claims, then naturally that religion will bring itself into conflict with any discipline that deals with how the universe works. When that happens, it is the fault of the religion that makes such contrary-to-fact claims and the solution is for that religion to stop doing such foolish things.
By the same token, there is no inherent conflict between evolution and Christianity.
(follow link to read more)
Evolution isn't creationists' enemy, but rather a philosophy that could be called "evolutionism would be."
(follow link to read more)
Based on three decades of studying "creation science" and over two decades of discussing it on-line with creationists, I have a very low opinion of "creation science":
- I have seen an incredible amount of dishonesty being practiced by the creationist community, so much so that dishonesty seems to be an integral part of "creation science". The best that I can understand why that would be is that truthfulness and honesty are antithetical to "creation science":
  (follow link to read more)
- "Creation science" is a fraud and a deception based entirely on false and misleading claims. Most of my research has been in checking out creationist claims.
  - "Creation science" was created as a deliberate deception in order to circumvent court decisions that had struck down religious purposes for barring the teaching of evolution.
  - "Creation science" has been justifiably called "the game of 'Hide the Bible'", as creationists try to hide the fact that "creation science" is not the least bit scientific, but rather purely religious. Actually, they only play "Hide the Bible" with the courts and with the general public (eg, in their debates, in trying to sway public opinion in their favor), but they are forthright about their religious nature and goals when preaching to the choir. Their game of "Hide the Bible" is especially transparent in their "public school materials", which are blatantly religious even though explicit religious references -- eg, Bible quotations, references by name to God, Noah, Adam & Eve, etc. -- had been removed. As soon as the US Supreme Court ruled that "creation science" is religious in nature (Edwards v. Aguillard, 1987), creationists adopted "intelligent design" (ID) as their new front, starting their new game of "Hide the Creationism". And since the courts have now identified ID as just another form of creationism (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 2005), we are waiting to see what the new game is going to be.
  - Creationists claim that their "creation science" objections to evolution are entirely based on science, but in reality all their "scientific" objections are false and that whole charade only serves as a smoke-screen for the real reason for their objections, which are purely religious and based on narrowly sectarian theologies.
    More specifically, their claims will be: (follow the link to read)

My Experiences and Observations:

In the 30-plus years that I've been studying and participating in discussions of "creation science", I have seen and experienced many things that have helped to shape my opinion of creationists and "creation science". I'm presenting some of them here in quasi-chronological order; my essay, Why I Oppose Creation Science, describes my earlier experiences in more detail.

My Experiences:

My first encounter was circa 1970 when the "Jesus Freak" movement flooded fundamentalist churches with new converts. A friend's brother-in-law made a general claim that there was scientific evidence that the earth is only about 6,000 years old and that the Flood really happened. He also present two specific claims:

A living clam was carbon-dated to be thousands of years old.
It sounded fishy to me, but I didn't research it until the mid-1980's. It's an example of the "reservoir effect" in which "old carbon" is built up in the environment and is taken in by the organism instead of the "new carbon" from the air. In the case of cold-water sea life the source of that "old carbon" would be the food-chain which starts at the bottom of the ocean, but in the case of those fresh-water clams the source was the limestone dissolved in the water. It's well-understood by scientists and misrepresented by creationists.

A NASA computer calculating moon positions in the past discovered "Joshua's Long Day".
I knew immediately that this one was bogus, since it was ascribing to computers near-magical properties that I knew full well they could not possess; remember, that was in an age of near total computer illiteracy, what with microcomputers still being nearly a decade in the future. There are many sites addressing this bogus claim, most of them Christian sites such as this one.

That first exposure just told me that there was nothing to these creationist claims. And Chick Pubs' ridiculous (but then what Chick Pub wasn't?) first Big Daddy? (since redone apparently by Kent Hovind and not any better for it; see here) didn't help their case any.

Around 1981, Duane Gish gave a presentation at the local university, which I missed because I had duty that night. But it got me wonder about creationism again. It occurred to me that if they're still around 10 years later, then maybe they do have some evidence after all and I wanted to learn what it was. 30 years later, I still haven't seen any of that evidence.
It didn't take me long to learn that they still didn't have anything. What claims I could find contained no real information and kept getting the science wrong. On TV, I watched a leading creationist in action deliberately ignoring unfavorable evidence that was right in front of him and was being repeatedly pointed out to him. This was also during the Arkansas "balanced treatment" trial, McLean v. Arkansas, and the scandal in Livermore, CA, over a "balanced treatment" class in the elementary school that both divided the community and turned some of the students into atheists.

Then I read a few books, starting with Phillip Kitcher's Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism. And in 1984, I heard a presentation on "creation science" by Fred Edwords on the radio and for the first time heard about the state-level Committees of Correspondence (not to be confused with other groups that have adopted that pre-American Revolution term; please follow the links) and their newly-formed national clearinghouse, the National_Center_for_Science_Education (NCSE). That night I listened to the Ray Briem radio show featuring Edwords and Duane Gish and was not at all impressed by Gish, the person whose local appearance in 1981 had gotten me wondering what evidence that actually had. His arguments and conduct were as I had read described.

I joined the NCSE (membership subscriptions) and ordered back copies of their newsletter and journal. The very first newsletter featured the story of Duane Gish's infamous bullfrog protein claim. Every issue also reported on debates and on creationists' activities on both the local and state levels, part of the original purpose of the Committees of Correspondence; NCSE is still a prime source for current information on creationists' politicial and legal activities (eg, lawsuits, state laws, school board elections, school policies, "balanced treatment" classes).

In 1985, I had my first discussions with a creationist, Charles; he couldn't provide me with any evidence for creation even though he knew that they had "mountains of evidence." On 28 September 1985, we attended a debate matching William Thwaites and Frank Awbrey against Duane Gish and Henry Morris. As we were leaving, Charles was in shock, unable to understand why the creationists had refused to present any of those "mountains of evidence" they say they have. I lost touch with him until 1991, by which time he was thoroughly disgusted with creationists.

After that debate, I wrote to Henry Morris at his Institute for Creation Research (ICR) with a few questions, such as why they never present any evidence for creation but only claims against evolution -- his response was the Two-Model Approach. I also asked in a separate letter for more information about a claim he had made at the debate about a "1976" NASA document that showed that there should be a layer of dust on the moon over 200 feet thick; Duane Gish responded to that one with a letter written by the originator of the claim, Harold Slusher.

As I had returned to university around that time, I started researching creationist claims -- since the Internet didn't open up for the public until about seven years later, you couldn't research on-line. Eg:

Having finally found a reference for that "thousands-year-old living mollusc" claim I had heard 15 years prior, I looked it up and learned the real story, that the anomalous age was due to the reservoir effect of that clam using carbon from the dissolved limestone in its water.

I also found Morris' "1976" NASA document, which in reality were papers presented at a 1965 conference and was printed in 1967 and which was misrepresented by Slusher and never researched or verified by Morris when he cited it in his book, Scientific Creationism (read the full story here).

I also bought and read several creationist books and subscribed to the ICR's Acts & Facts which included their Impact articles, a frequent source of their claims. Thus I could read what the creationists were themselves saying rather than rely on what others reported.

Then starting in the late 1980's, I started engaging in on-line discussions. And as those creationists would make or repeat claims, that then led to further research.

In the late 1980's, I got an account on CompuServe, one of the major pre-Internet on-line services, and joined the Creation/Evolution discussion in the SCIENCE & RELIGION section of the Religion Forum. I wrote some essays, some of them based on discussions, and uploaded them into the section's library. I remained active there until 1997, when CompuServe "improved" its protocol and format, which rendered it impossible to use and thus forced me out.

In the 1990's after the Internet opened up, I joined some newsgroups, including talk.origins. Then when Google revamped how it handled newsgroups, it just became too cumbersome and difficult to use, so I had to leave there too.

Google Forums

Evc
And on CompuServe and in later forums, the claims that creationists would make led to further research.

AOL around 1994, web site in 1997, went down in early 2008, just now bringing it back up in mid-2011

My Observations:

First uploaded on 1997 June 26.
Last updated on 2011 August 15.