You’ve mentioned them before as IDers. Besides ID being a problem in itself, do you see adherence to ID affect their work as scientists? If so, how?
Thanks
Which one? Definintions or Foul!?
Perhaps foolishly, I’ll take the bait.
I am not above rolling my eyes and leaving the last word to someone else.
It, rightly I’m afraid, destroyed Hoyle’s credibility and prevented him from earning a Nobel, which is not given for the cited single piece of work, but for the laureate’s ouevre. The others either jumped ship (Sir John) aged out (Dyson) or had gone as far as they could (Davies). I have immense sympathy for Hoyle, but he was no martyr.
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So, would you say that ID was affecting the credibility of their work (because it somehow interferred with doing science well), or was it affecting their reputations?
Loss of reputation goes with loss of quantity of quality work, it reflects distraction and worse. It reflects indulgence, opportunity cost. Even Oxbridge dons are regarded as dilettantes if they have interests beside, perpendicular to their narrow furrow. People like Behe, Wise, Meyer have no reputation to lose.
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What is interesting is that the most prominent degreed ID supporters aren’t really doing research, so it’s a moot question to ask if their work has credibility. Douglas Axe puts out some research once in a blue moon, but then he publishes with the in house ID journal which has no credibility. If he thinks his work is credible then he would be trying to publish his work in standard journals, or perhaps he has tried and got turned down. Stephen Meyer conspired with an editor at a real journal to get one of his papers published which demonstrates his lack of confidence in the paper.
Kurt Wise is an interesting case. He was a died-in-the-wool YEC when he attended Harvard where he got his PhD under Stephen Jay Gould himself. Wise was open about his beliefs, and from all accounts Wise and Gould got along just fine. Wise remains a YEC, and has stated that no amount of evidence will ever change his mind because he believes the Bible demands YEC. When you conclusions are impervious to evidence then you really aren’t doing science.
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So he may not have been so much bad at science as he was bad at theology.
At least he is self aware.
“Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young Earth, I am a young age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate.”–Kurt Wise
“. . . try as I might, and even with the benefit of intact margins throughout the pages of Scripture, I found it impossible to pick up the Bible without it being rent in two. I had to make a decision between evolution and Scripture. Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible. . . . It was there that night that I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including evolution. With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science.”–Kurt Wise
Wow. That hurts to read it. I guess he is true to his convictions. I find the conclusion of all or nothing really hard in this case.
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Aye. Poor sod. Kudos for his useless honesty. The trouble is, he’s the only coherent, consistent YECist.
[yoda]There is another[/yoda]
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I thought that sounded like Todd Wood before I clicked the link. He is a good guy, has even had some collaborative works with EC types. Book Review: “The Fool and The Heretic” by Todd Charles Wood and Darrel R. Falk – Naturalis Historia
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Assuming one starts with correct assumptions about what the Bible is, what it means to say it is God!s word, what the point of the words were for the intended audience and how to understand them from our contemporary perspective.
But certainly he demonstrated much more intellectual integrity than many.
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These guys. How sad. I don’t feel that about the majority YEC lesser mortals.
Hadn’t gotten a chance to read it, but placed it in the church library before we left, hoping somebody who needed might find it. There are going to be a bunch. On both sides who need to hear: stop condemning people for using their intellect, and there are things we can live with that we don’t agree on; cut (more than just some) slack.
@T_aquaticus, the Yoda font is great.
How many times have I heard this? But without the questions you follow up with.
Discussion over. The word of the Lord (as understood by…).
Michael Behe is a tenured professor at Lehigh University in the department of biological sciences. Before he got into ID he did good scientific work. Since then, he has gone to the dark side. He can’t be fired, so his university published the following statement on their web site.
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Wow!
A gutsy and creative work around.
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Ha! T-shirt slogan and quote for the day: “My conclusions are impervious to evidence.”
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