{"id":592,"date":"2010-12-23T18:22:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T18:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/correction-there-is-a-big-problem-with-many-religious-scientists.html"},"modified":"2010-12-23T18:22:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T18:22:00","slug":"correction-there-is-a-big-problem-with-many-religious-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/correction-there-is-a-big-problem-with-many-religious-scientists.html","title":{"rendered":"CORRECTION: There IS A Big Problem With Many Religious “Scientists”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday I posted \u201cCan An Astronomer Have Faith In The Bible<\/a>?\u201d\u00a0 It seems that in my naivete regarding the qualifications of certain religious scientists, I may have missed a very serious problem with these people.\u00a0 A reader, cipher, has better acquainted me with this issue.<\/p>\n

I am an admirer of science and I\u2019m a literate enough layperson, but I had no idea of the unbelievable subversion of real science that\u2019s taking place these days and how some universities are complicit.\u00a0 It seems that there are other Gaskells out there, earning doctorates in a variety of scientific fields, only to throw out everything they\u2019ve learned in favor of their faith in mythology. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a few links that cipher sent me to the popular site Pharyngula (the site\u2019s linked to the right)\u00a0 to show you what I mean.\u00a0 In the first link, PZ Myers directly addresses the Gaskell case<\/a> and makes the crucial point that:<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t be at all surprised that Gaskell was exceptionally competent in the very narrow domain of his astronomical work, but faculty don\u2019t get hired to do only one thing, and Gaskell himself is quite clear that he isn\u2019t going to confine himself to talking only about his field\u2026and unfortunately, it\u2019s also clear that he was a confused and ignorant boob about all the other subjects he was happy to lecture about.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I solely addressed his narrow competency in my previous post, I did not take all of this into account.\u00a0 Myers is 100% correct.\u00a0 In fact, I should have been more insulted by Gaskell\u2019s crappy assertions about the bible than I was.\u00a0 I guess I\u2019ve just gotten too used to that kind of misrepresentation.<\/p>\n

In a post from 2009, cipher provided his own first-hand account of what happens when creationists receive these doctorates.\u00a0 He attended a lecture by Nathaniel Jeanson who took his Harvard Ph.D. and went to work<\/a> for the Institute for Creation Research:<\/p>\n

\u2026[I]t was an hour-long spectacle of misinformation, half-truths and what appeared to be deliberate obfuscation. Most of this (probably all of it) you\u2019ve heard before. He began by contrasting Evolutionary Theory and Creationism. Evolution, he said, admits only naturalistic explanations, discounts eyewitness testimony (i.e., the Bible) and insists upon uniformitarianism. Naturally, he sees these as weaknesses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bible is not eyewitness testimony to anything, much less creation.\u00a0 This was from the Q & A:<\/p>\n

A young woman noted that he had no problem questioning the opinions of scientists, but that he seemed unwilling to question the Bible, which was written by poorly educated men 2,500 \u2013 3,000 years ago. He replied that he\u2019d studied the Bible extensively, had found it to be reliable and consistent, and that when he\u2019d thought he\u2019d found an inconsistency, it turned out to be the result of his own \u201cwrong thinking\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anybody can twist the bible to mean anything.\u00a0 Only a scholarly critical textual approach, enhanced by verifiable archeological findings, can yield up any sense from the various texts called the bible.\u00a0 They came into being over a very long time, they frequently contradict each other, they are as political as they are religious (since the two were the same) and they reflect in every single way the world view of the Iron and Bronze Ages.\u00a0 Just as we would expect from such a collection.<\/p>\n

Last Passover I had seder with another rabbi, not even Orthodox,\u00a0 who tried to show me how Genesis wonderfully foreshadowed scientific discoveries.\u00a0 I asked him if this included plants and light appearing before the sun.\u00a0 That shut him down fairly quick and this guy knows his bible.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting to realize that rabbis like him are relying on \u201cprofessors\u201d like Jeanson and Gaskell for their ridiculous interpretations of the bible.\u00a0 The fake scientists and the religious leaders feed on each other\u2019s hokum.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I posted \u201cCan An Astronomer Have Faith In The Bible?\u201d\u00a0 It seems that in my naivete regarding the qualifications of certain religious scientists, I may have missed a very serious problem with these people.\u00a0 A reader, cipher, has better acquainted me with this issue. I am an admirer of science and I\u2019m a literate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,12,38],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-evolution-and-creationism","tag-fundamentalist-christianity","tag-science-and-reason"],"yoast_head":"\nCORRECTION: There IS A Big Problem With Many Religious "Scientists"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday I posted \u201cCan An Astronomer Have Faith In The Bible?\u201d\u00a0 It seems that in my naivete regarding the qualifications of certain religious scientists,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/correction-there-is-a-big-problem-with-many-religious-scientists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CORRECTION: There IS A Big Problem With Many Religious "Scientists"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday I posted \u201cCan An Astronomer Have Faith In The Bible?\u201d\u00a0 It seems that in my naivete regarding the qualifications of certain religious scientists,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/correction-there-is-a-big-problem-with-many-religious-scientists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-23T18:22:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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