Portland Oregonian
Shepherding their arguments
Scientist Duane Gish helps fellow creationists hone debate
skills in order to best evolutionists
Thursday, February 24, 2005
by NANCY HAUGHT
The real battle would pit a creationist against an
evolutionist on Saturday night, but the strategy unfolded in
a workshop the day before. "How to Debate an Evolutionist"
drew 100 men and women looking for confidence to a hotel
ballroom to hear a decorated hero tell war stories and offer
tips.
The hero was Duane Gish, a biochemist with a doctorate from
the University of California at Berkeley, vice president of
the Institute for Creation Research in El Cajon, Calif.,
and, he proudly insists, victor in all 300 debates he's had
with evolutionists.
Gish was a featured speaker at the 18th annual Northwest
Creation Conference, sponsored by Creation Science
Ministries of Oregon. The group's founder, Dennis Swift,
billed in the group's brochure as the "Indiana Jones of
creationism," said that about 1,800 people attended
workshops at the Holiday Inn Portland Airport last Friday
and Saturday. About 450 stayed for the big debate on
Saturday night.
Creationists are Christians who believe in a literal reading
of the biblical account that God created Earth and the life
on it in six days and then rested on the seventh. Their
issue, which many Americans thought was decided during the
Scopes trial in 1925, has recently resurfaced in school
board debates around the country. Creationists want creation
science to be taught in public schools, alongside evolution,
which they argue is only a competing theory about life on Earth.
There is some disagreement about what constitutes creation
science. Gish and other creationists argue that there is
scientific evidence to support the role of a divine creation
that took place in less than a week. Most scientists
disagree, accusing creationists of pseudoscience, the
practice of bolstering an argument with scientific-sounding
language that can persuade a lay audience but won't stand up
to scientific inquiry.
The bottom line, creationists say, is that few evolutionists
are willing to debate creationists. Swift said he's tried
for years to set up such contests and almost always the
evolutionist declined or canceled at the last minute.
"But this is a historic moment," Swift told the workshop
crowd. "Dr. Max is upstairs."
Dr. Edward E. Max is a molecular biologist with a medical
degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from the
University of Pennsylvania. He studies antibodies at the
National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., but he made
it clear he was not representing the government in this
debate. It was his seventh face-off against a creationist,
his second with Gish.
In a telephone interview, Max said he defies the prevailing
wisdom in his scientific circles by agreeing to debate
creationists. Generally, scientists shun such debates
because they say creationists don't cite information,
sources or experiments that can be checked or tested by
other scientists.
"When no evolutionist is willing to stand up to
(creationists), they make a lot of hay out of that," Max
said. "I always figure that a few people who come (to the
debate) are on the fence, and I hope that I am able to
convince those people that creation science is
non-professional. It's not valid."
Gish, clearly, does not agree. He's heard the argument that
it's pseudoscience many times and he seems to shrug it off.
On Friday, the day before his debate with Max, he had three
hours to present the highlights from his six videotapes
titled "Winning the Creation Debate." He got quickly down to
brass tacks. Almost everyone in the audience took notes as
he listed his main points.
"Know your subject." He recommended his own books and those
by other creationist speakers. "Be prepared to talk about
geology, biology, the philosophy of science and
mathematics," he said.
It's good to know, for example, that the mathematical odds
of the hundreds of essential amino acids aligning themselves
by chance to form a protein molecule is about "1 out of 1,
followed by 3 million zeroes," he said.
"Have a clean, current and professional visual aid."
Old-fashioned slide shows have given way to PowerPoint
presentations, he said. "It looks good and will speak well
of you, professionally."
"Limit the debate." He urged that creationists not introduce
religion into the debate. "The scientific evidence for
creation is superior to the scientific evidence for
evolution," he said.
"The strongest argument against evolution is the fossil
record," he insisted. Scientists have not found a genuine
fossil from a "transitional form," an evolutional link
between chimpanzees and humans, he said. (In their debate
the following night, evolutionist Max offered evidence to
the contrary.)
Frame the debate using creationist language, he said. "You
are contrasting the evidence for a theistic, supernatural,
special creation with that for a nontheistic, materialistic,
mechanistic theory of evolution."
It was unclear how many in the audience were preparing for
formal debates with evolutionists, or even with school boards.
Dr. Steve Kirkpatrick, a dentist from Longview, Wash., is
planning to speak to a youth group at his church. Convinced
of the creationist argument, he wants to be able to answer
any question a young person might ask.
"I believe that God created the heavens and the Earth just
like he said he did (in Genesis)," Kirkpatrick said. "The
scientific evidence is there to back it up." Kirkpatrick
doesn't believe in random chance, "chemical affinity" and
self-ordering processes. "There is no natural explanation. I
believe that there is a supernatural one."
Jerry Allen is a mechanic from Burbank, a suburb of Pasco,
Wash. "Most of my debates are one-on-one, at work," he said.
A workshop like this helps him organize his thoughts and be
ready, at a moment's notice, to make a point or two in favor
of creationism.
"We have kids killing kids because they think they're just a
bunch of people descended from monkeys, with no one to
answer to," he said. "If I took a bunch of guns to the zoo
and handed them out to the monkeys, we'd have a bunch of
dead monkeys. My problem is not with guns. My problem is
with calling my kids monkeys."
***** Temple, a veterinarian from Lexington, near Heppner,
said most of Gish's suggestions were familiar to him. "I can
get pretty technical if you want to talk viruses and
bacteria," he said, but most important are the consequences
of believing in creationism.
"People hear these arguments and then they say, 'Well, there
really was a creation.' Now, if there really was a creation,
then there must be a creator. And we're responsible to that
creator."
That is a huge admission for most people in a secular
society to make, he said. "They want to follow their own
rules, not those of the creator."
"Creationism reveals the character of God," said Doris
Anderson, who with her husband runs The Seven Wonders, a
ministry-museum in Silver Lake, Wash., near Mount St.
Helens. Exhibits at The Seven Wonders show what great
geologic changes can occur as the result of one volcanic
action, a witness, she believes, to what God could
accomplish in six days.
That's why the ongoing debate between creationists and
evolutionists is so important, Anderson said. It's why she'd
like more people to hear the evidence on both sides. God was
efficient, she said, and committed, from the first, to good
things, not to random chances.
"It didn't take God millions of years, and he did it right
the first time."
Nancy Haught: 503-294-7625;
mailto:nancyhaught@news.oregonian.com
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
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-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
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