07AR12-08

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Apologia Report 12:8

March 1, 2007

Subject: NY Times notes paleontologist who is also a creationist

In this issue:

EVANGELICALISM - "can we learn to live without the alarmism that is so comfortably familiar to us?"

ORIGINS - New York Times notes recently awarded PhD in paleontology to young-earth creationist

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EVANGELICALISM

Got your flame-retardant shorts on? In "Evangelicals Behaving Badly with Statistics," Christian Smith, writes that "American evangelicals, who profess to be committed to Truth, are among the worst abusers of simple descriptive statistics, which claim to represent the truth about reality, of any group I have ever seen. At stake in this misuse are evangelicals' own integrity, credibility with outsiders, and effectiveness in the world."

Smith, who is both active in evangelical youth ministry and a sociology professor at the University of Notre Dame, is frustrated with the abuse he sees and presents his best example, found in "a recent issue of American evangelicalism's flagship magazine." (He avoids naming names throughout this article, but a little homework is probably all that one would need to assign blame.) The object of offense is "a glossy, four-page, centerfold advertisement for a national leadership summit" which employs the banners: "Wake Up Call" and "Christianity in America Won't Survive Another Decade, Unless We Do Something Now." Further, "Pastors who attend this 'high level briefing' in which 'top voices' will 'present the hard facts,' the ad states, will be doing their part to avert the catastrophe of dwindling church attendance, increase in peer pressure, a growth in porn and violence on TV, and the decay of 'our Christian nation.'" Smith reacts with words like "preposterous" and "really incredible."

What bugs Smith is that this conference, the focus of "a national movement [that] is now being organized to re-educate 20,000 youth pastors in 44 cities around the nation," is "based on ... erroneous conclusions" that can be isolated to just one "1997 youth ministry book about 'the bridger generation' written by a professor at a significant evangelical seminary." Smith reports that "the book's author is guilty of making some unwarranted inferences about national representation and future events based on limited data and faulty logic."

The basis for the book's conclusion comes from "a seminary ministry professor [who] conducted an 'informal survey' nine years ago with 211 young people in three states, selected by methods about which we know nothing, asked questions we know almost nothing about, and then made the logical error of drawing an unwarranted inference from a small and non-representative sample about trends and future faith conditions of entire generations." Bottom line: "the book's author is guilty of making some unwarranted inferences about national representation and future events based on limited data and faulty logic."

Smith laments: "Evangelical leaders and organizations routinely use descriptive statistics in sloppy, unwarranted, misrepresenting, and sometimes absolutely preposterous ways, usually to get attention and sound alarms, at least some of which are false alarms. The widespread influence of much-cited evangelical pollsters, who do not actually come entirely clean on their methods, does not help matters either. It seems that one of two situations pertains. Either statistically reckless evangelicals are somewhat aware that they are playing fast and loose with numbers. Or they are not, they simply do not know better."

Smith further complains that "evangelical programs that miscalculate reality in such ways - however well meaning and enthusiastic they are - surely undermine their own long-term credibility and effectiveness. ...

"The real question is not whether evangelicals can clean up their statistical act. The deeper question is whether American evangelicals can learn to live without the alarmism that is so comfortably familiar to them. Evangelicals, by my observation, thrive on fear of impending catastrophe, accelerating decay, apocalyptic crises that demand immediate action (and maybe money). All of that can be energizing and mobilizing. The problem is, it also often distorts, misrepresents, or falsifies what actually happens to be true about reality." Books & Culture, Jan/Feb '07, p11. <http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/001/5.11.html>

Apologia Report consulting editor Mark Hartwig offers the following wise counterpoint: "Where is the evidence that evangelicals are worse than others? The truth of that allegation is not readily apparent, and I once made a living at designing, excuting and analyzing surveys for the University of California at Santa Barbara. Bad survey design and misinterpretation of results are rife in our society. Singling out any group as the worst is a dicey proposition. Both sides, liberal as well as conservative, are equally guilty of playing the hysteria card. In fact, Sociologist James Davison Hunter [U of VA] considered this an exacerbating feature of the culture war, and characteristic of both sides."

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ORIGINS

"Believing Scripture but Playing by Science's Rules" by Cornelia Dean -- recognizes the newsworthiness of the University of Rhode Island recently granting a doctoral degree in geosciences to Marcus R. Ross. What's the rub? Answer: "Dr. Ross is hardly a conventional paleontologist. He is a 'young earth creationist' - he believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old." Ross is now teaching earth science at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

Dean asked Ross how he balanced his secular Ph.D. and his faith. "He likened his situation to that of a socialist studying economics in a department with a supply-side bent." We found an interesting take on Ross's analogy in a getreligion.org response to this article [1]: "There is nothing so political as the academy." Alluding to a practice as old as jumping through hoops, the blogger continues: "My professors ... told me how to play the game. Basically that meant that I would just study whatever I was assigned and complete coursework in support of the approved theories. Once I received my Ph.D., I was to keep up the facade, more or less, until I was tenured. Only then could I reveal my personal views." And all of this advice was within the context of economic theory - no major worldview contrasts involved.

Dean knows the challenges from worldview conflict that arise at this point: "May a secular university deny otherwise qualified students a degree because of their religion? Can a student produce intellectually honest work that contradicts deeply held beliefs? Should it be obligatory (or forbidden) for universities to consider how students will use the degrees they earn?"

In seeking reactions from people who represent scientism, Dean interviews Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, "a private group on the front line of the battle for the teaching of evolution." Scott makes some telling remarks. As "a former professor of physical anthropology at the University of Colorado, [she] said in an interview that graduate admissions committees were entitled to consider the difficulties that would arise from admitting a doctoral candidate with views 'so at variance with what we consider standard science.' She said such students 'would require so much remedial instruction it would not be worth my time.'

"That is not religious discrimination, she added, it is discrimination 'on the basis of science.'"

Dean found a colleague of Scott's with a contrary point of view. "Steven B. Case, [who is] a research professor at the Center for Research Learning at the University of Kansas [and] who champions the teaching of evolution, heads the committee writing state science standards in Kansas, a state particularly racked by challenges to Darwin. Even so, he said it would be frightening if universities began 'enforcing some sort of belief system on their graduate students.'"

Then there is David E. Fastovsky, "a paleontologist and professor of geosciences ... who was Dr. Ross's dissertation adviser." Fastovsky says he "talked to Dr. Ross 'lots of times' about his religious beliefs, but that depriving him of his doctorate because of them would be nothing more than religious discrimination."

Dean raises a few additional points of interest. One is an insight on Ross's view of another controversial origins topic. Ross believes that "intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism, is a better explanation than evolution for the Cambrian explosion." We're glad to read that Ross doesn't sling mud where other young-earth people might see an opportunity to highlight opposition to ID thinking.

Dean also identifies a couple of noted creationists. "Los Alamos National Laboratory has a geophysicist on staff, John R. Baumgardner, who is an authority on the earth's mantle - and also a young earth creationist. ...

"Perhaps the most famous creationist wearing the secular mantle of science is Kurt P. Wise, who earned his doctorate at Harvard in 1989 under the guidance of the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould....

"Dr. Wise, who teaches at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., wrote his dissertation on gaps in the fossil record." New York Times, Feb 12 '07, n.p. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/science/12geologist.html?ex=1328936400 &en=e67e1962791263fe&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss>

In a related story ("The Other ID Opponents: Traditional creationists see Intelligent Design as an attack on the Bible" by Rob Moll, Apr 25 '06) Christianity Today notes that "Southern Baptist Theological Seminary named creationist Kurt P. Wise to replace outgoing Intelligent Design proponent William Dembski. The theological and scientific differences between Dembski and Wise are deep and wide." Moll explains how "Intelligent Design and creationism are not co-conspirators trying to overthrow Darwinian evolution." <http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2006/aprilweb-only/117-22.0.html>

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Sources, Digital:

1 - http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2215

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