Featured How much “unbelief” is acceptable

This simply isn't so. Here's 50 PhD scientists who believe in a six-day creation, and my understanding is that the book was limited by size, not the number of available scientists.

 

I read that book and it was a great read... I didn't read it to understand the six day creation and a young earth. I already believed that but to see the further research done in the field of scientific study and those scientist who are also Christian believers and what these scientist had to say in their specific field of study and how it related to the topic was well worth the price of the book... I recommend it highly... Brother Glen

 

I cannot speak for creationists in America, but two of the most prominent figures in Britain are Prof. Stuart Burgess, Head of the Department of Design at Bristol University and Prof. Andrew Mackintosh, Head of Combustion Theory at Leeds University. Do an internet search on the men if you like. Both of them are Reformed in their theology, as is Dr. Chris Pegington (PhD in Genetics) who lectured at Cambridge University before receiving a call to ministry. Fundamentalism is quite rare in the UK.

Having said all that, I don't see why being a fundamentalist should automatically disqualify one from being a creationist.

 

Any sort of Christian belief is becoming sadly unusual in the UK. Frown
However, I was speaking of what you are calling the 'new, revisionist definition' of the term. I assumed that was what Craigbythesea was referring to. Among the tiny remnant of Bible-believing Christians there is something of a revival in Reformed theology.

 

Thank you for the very polite wording in your reply. Unfortunately, however, John F. Ashton chose to willfully and deliberately deceive the public by giving his book a dishonest title. Please read the book as I have, and you will see for yourself that those 50 “scientists” were not all scientists, and not all of them earned a Ph.D. or the equivalent. Among the 50 we find an engineer, a dentist, etc. Please do NOT take my word for it, but read the book for yourself!

 

Well, the link I provided shows the 50 scientists involved if you poke about a bit. There is one 'orthodontist' among them.
Do you not have to know any science to gain a PhD in orthodontistry? Are you any sort of orthodontist so as to know what they study? Medicine is a science as much as any other form of it.

 

Prof. Stuart Burgess has NOT earned any degrees in any field of science. If I am not mistaken, Andrew McIntosh is also an engineer rather that a scientist, and is currently working on a Ph.D. in some field of engineering. If I am mistaken about him, please post the correct information along with your source. Yes, Chris Pegington has earned a Ph.D. in genetics, a branch of science. However, are these men outnumbered 100,000 to one in their beliefs because their beliefs are right—or because they are wrong? By the way, do you ignore the odds and play lotteries?


Martin, Thank you again for the politeness in your posts!

 

Does having earned a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology make the man a philosopher?

 

The term fundamentalist means different things to different people. It means something very different to a Muslim than it does to a Christian. And the term Christian fundamentalist means different things to different Christians, largely due to differences in what they consider to be fundamental to the Christian faith.


Between 1910 and 1915 a series of twelve volumes was “sent to every pastor, evangelist, missionary, theological professor, theological student, Sunday school superintendent, Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. secretary in the English speaking world, so far as the addresses of all these can be obtained.” (From the preface of volume one). The expense for this (about 3 million sets of twelve volumes in paperback) was born by two Christian laymen who were not named, but Lyman Stewart was probably one of the two. The title of this set of twelve volumes was The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth and it included 94 essays written by 64 American and British theologians of a very conservative, Protestant theologcal perspective. Twenty-seven of the essays pertained to higher criticism of the Bible, a form of Biblical study that had prevously been applied almost exclusively by liberarl theologians, especially in Germany, but which was in the beginning of the 20th century gaining the approval of an increasing number of conservative theologians in the United States and elsewhere.

Needless to say, these 3 million sets of twelve volumes had a major impact on the understanding of what is meant by Christian fundamentalism, and these twelve volumes were subsequently printed and sold and are still available today for a price. I inherited one of the about 3 million sets of 12 volumes and have it today in my personal library.

 

I wonder if you think that working on spacecraft design for the European Space Agency and on the Hubble Space Telescope is possible without any degrees in science?

The men's C.V.s are available here:
http://creation.com/prof-stuart-burgess
http://creation.com/andy-McIntosh I think you will find that Professor Andy Mcintosh gained his PhD more than 20 years ago.

Your claim that there are only 30 PhD scientists who believe in creationism is wildly inaccurate. In the kindest way possible, may I suggest that you check your facts before you post?

However, I don't believe in creationism because these men also believe it. I believe it for the same reason they believe it- it is clearly taught in the Bible. Also, I do not succumb to the Tyranny of Experts.

 

The disciplines of science and engineering are often confused by lay people who have little knowledge of either. Dr. Henry Petroski, Professor of Engineering at Duke University, recently wrote a short piece to clear up the confusion,

Engineering Is Not Science

And confusing the two keeps us from solving the problems of the world

In political discourse, public policy debates, and the mass media, engineering is often a synonym for science. This confusion might seem an innocuous shorthand for headline writers, but it can leave politicians, policymakers, and the general public unable to make informed decisions about the technical challenges facing the world today.

Science is about understanding the origins, nature, and behavior of the universe and all it contains; engineering is about solving problems by rearranging the stuff of the world to make new things. Conflating these separate objectives leads to uninformed opinions, which in turn can delay or misdirect management, effort, and resources.

Take this year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. No one, to the best of my knowledge, blamed it on science. Poor engineering decisions allowed gas to escape from a well in deep water, which in turn caused a fatal explosion. Subsequently, the engineered blowout preventer failed, and for months oil escaped into the environment. Poor engineering got us into the mess; surely only good engineering could get us out of it. Yet repeatedly, government and other research scientists were allowed to veto the engineering tactics needed to stanch the flow. In the end, of course, it was engineering that finally capped the well.

While not all of the technological challenges facing the world today require the same immediate attention as a gushing oil well—some are as mundane as developing renewable energy sources, providing clean water, and disposing of our mountains of garbage—they still present the same duality.

Scientists might argue that the government needs to invest in basic scientific research that will lead to unspecified discoveries about energy, water, and waste. Although a good deal is already known about those things, it certainly would not hurt to know more, but what would really move things forward would be investments in engineering.

Throughout history, a full scientific understanding has been neither necessary nor sufficient for great technological advances: The era of the steam engine, notably, was well into its second century before a fully formed science of thermodynamics had been developed. Indeed, sometimes science has impeded progress. Had Marconi believed his physicist contemporaries, he would have "known" that wireless telegraphy signals could not be sent across the ocean, around Earth's curvature.

Engineers welcome any and all available scientific knowledge, but they needn't wait for scientists to give them the go-ahead to invent, design, or develop the machinery to advance technology or to check it when it runs out of control. Without understanding this, we will continue to underfund the engineering needed to solve our greatest problems.​

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/engineering-is-not-science

http://cee.duke.edu/faculty/henry-petroski

 

Thank you for the information that you posted about Andrew McIntosh. I checked him out at a website belonging to the University of Leeds and learned that his current position there is listed as Visiting Professor at the Energy Research Institute, which is a subdivision of the School of chemical and process engineering. I also learned there his research activities,

• Advanced Materials for Aerospace Applications
• Aviation
• Biomimetics
• Combustion in Gas Turbine Engines and Enhanced Efficiency
• Emissions and their Control
• Fundamentals of Pressure Interactions with Flames
• Hot Spot Ignition
• Ignition of Combustible Fluid and Vapour within Porous Insulation Material
• Interaction of Acoustics and Flames

https://www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/people/eri/staff/a.c.mcintosh

I see that two creationist websites claim that he earned he earned a D.Sc. in mathematics from the university of Wales in 1998, but I have not been able to verify that claim.

http://creation.com/andy-mcintosh
https://christiananswers.net/creation/people/mcintosh-a.html

May I politely suggest that you check your facts before you post? I did not claim that “there are only 30 PhD scientists who believe in creationism.” I wrote,

There are today over 3,000,000 scientists who have earned a Ph.D. (or an equivalent degree such as a Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., D.S., or Dr.Sc.); and among these 3,000,000+ scientists, fewer than 30 have been identified by creationist organizations fighting against evolution as disbelieving in the theory of evolution, and even fewer have been identified by creationist organizations as believing that the earth is only about 10,000 years old—and everyone of these men and women is a fundamentalist Christian!​

However, I see that what I posted was not accurate, and I thank you for the correction.

No, young earth creationists believe in young earth creationism because they mistakenly believe that it is clearly taught in the Bible. Moreover, young earth creationists disbelieve what is so clearly taught in the Bible that virtually all Christians believed it for nearly 1,500 years—that is, that the earth is flat and covered by a dome.

A few days ago I posted a link to an article in which the author explains in detail some of the evidence that the Hebrew word רָקִיעַ in Genesis 1:6-8 is necessarily speaking of a solid dome rather an atmospheric expanse as is taught today by the large majority of conservative evangelicals. Now that I know that you are a Reformed evangelical Christian, I should probably tell you that the author of the article is himself a Reformed evangelical Christian, and that the article was first published by Westminster Theological Seminary, one of the most theologically conservative evangelical seminaries in the entire world! Here again is that link,

https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/te...s/text/articles-books/seely-firmament-wtj.htm

A most frightening comment! Hopefully you are the only Christian with such a mind set!

 

Thank you for patronizing me. Now would you like to answer the question I asked?
Would you also tell me whether you believe that someone can become a Professor at a leading UK University without being educated to PhD standard?

 

Bill Nye the Engineering Guy just doesn't have the same ring to it, but I suppose he'll have to get used to the change.