Your Creation Science Career Starts Today!
May 1, 2007
Attention all wingnuts, burnouts and aspiring Daily Show writers! The Institute for Creation Research has put out a (PDF) call for scholarly papers:
Papers should be up to 10,000 words long, and color diagrams, figures and photographs are encouraged. Papers can be in any scientific, or social scientific, field, but must be from a young-earth perspective and aim to assist the development of the Creation Model of Origins. Papers should be submitted in a plain text, single line-spaced Word or RTF file. Formatting should be kept to an absolute minimum. Do NOT embed graphics, tables, figures or photographs in the text, but supply them in separate files, along with captions.
Yes, I’m sure lots of pictures (and extremely wide margins) are a feature of many if not most creation science papers. This call is the pseudoscience equivalent of those old Famous Artist School advertisements that were a feature of magazines, matchbooks and paperbacks in the 1960s.
If I weren’t already up to my eyebrows in work, I’d get cracking on that paper about how chaos theory shows that those little fractals are, upon closer examinations, collections of “666,” or how the new technique of Brimstone 14 dating proves the world is actually only a few thousand years old.
And don’t worry — if your paper doesn’t pass muster with the no-doubt demanding scholars at the Institute for Creation Research, it can always find a home with this outfit. It’s every bit as scholarly but, I’m afraid to say, not nearly as goofy.
The Opinion Mill 
May 1, 2007 at 9:29 am
I’m on it. I’m arguing that so-called ‘fossils’ are actually carvings done by Adam before the Fall. My Works Cited page features several Jack Chick pamphlets, a Hal Lindsay title or two, and articles from The Onion.
May 2, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Maybe your thinking of Brimstone 32 or 33?
May 2, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I welcome this… 1) It puts the onus of proof on the creation theorists, and invites them to engage in rational thought and use of the scientific method (though I have little “faith” they will do either).
2) It will hopefully lead to a unified acceptance of faith and fact-based objective thinking as separate but NOT incompatible things… I for one am Christian and a Biologist… I believe in evolution as whole-heartedly as I believe in God. I think that the arguement that only one or the other exists is flawed. Faith has nothing to do with scientific research and emperical evidence to prove theories, and science has nothing to do with faith and having a relationship with God.
The problem is, this Christian research most definitely has an agenda, which discredits it up front…
May 2, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Wow. “Young-earth perspective” does not jive with “scholarly papers.”
May 2, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Typo in my URL… this one is correct
May 2, 2007 at 2:43 pm
99% of the papers will be to poke holes in accepted theory. They are looking for a standard of proof for science that they would never consider applying to their own beliefs. They are in DENIAL.
As far as the separate spheres of discourse between religion and science, either the bible is the literal word of “God”, or it was written by humans.
May 3, 2007 at 7:28 am
You know, it’s no wonder there is such animosity on both sides of this issue. It’s posts like this one which just mock Christians and their beliefs without even giving people the chance to submit a piece of work THAT PLAYS BY YOUR RULES OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND PEER REVIEW. Instead of dismissing and mocking the idea, at least have the professional courtesy to read their work and then comment. Isn’t that what all scientists do? Or are you going to take the elitist road and say “these aren’t scientists,” simply because they have a different theory than yours. At least acknowledge that they are trying to lay a groundwork of scholarship for crying out loud.
May 3, 2007 at 9:02 am
Well, bully for them for trying. I don’t expect they will find any, or if there was it’d be out there by now; this creationism concept isn’t exactly new.
Trying to find a groundwork of scholarship for ideas you’ve already sold as good science is usually a sign of failure. Or a bad idea, at the very least.
May 21, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Sharon GR is absolutely right: Open solicitation to backfill your “good science” after already having sold it as such is a likely sign of failure –but I’d take it up a notch and also call it inept and desperate. As for Rob, while walking the “elitist road” and looking downward, what it looks like from up here is that christians invite mockery, and deservedly so. When your creationists think they can fool the crowd by wearing holy robes instead of lab coats, it’s not peer review, it’s standup comedy.
A “theory” (at least one definition)is supposed to be a “set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.” So, if a “theory” with supernatural “facts” can be supported with creationism as a science, maybe people will finally take my degree in “tooth fairyism” more seriously; I’ve been wanting to pursue a master’s degree in Easter Bunnies at The Institute for Dragon and Fairy Research.
On a closing note, I highly recommend Olson’s “Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus.” The documentary is really interesting and puts great
perspective on how things like the Scopes trial seem to have a recurring pattern.