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Many famous scientists were creationists (Talk.Origins)

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Response Article
This article (Many famous scientists were creationists (Talk.Origins)) is a response to a rebuttal of a creationist claim published by Talk.Origins Archive under the title Index to Creationist Claims.


Claim CA114:

There have been many famous scientists who believed in special creation in the past. (Talk.Origins then goes on to list about thirty scientists who were creationists).

Source: Morris, Henry M. 1982. Bible-believing scientists of the past. Impact 103 (Jan.), http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=185


CreationWiki response:

I must say that I have my doubts that Talk.Origins has done enough research on each scientists to know as much as he claims to know about them in his arguments.

(Talk.Origins quotes in blue)


The validity of evolution rests on what the evidence says, not on what people say. There is overwhelming evidence in support of evolution and no valid arguments against it.

If Talk.Origins thinks he has addressed every argument against evolution, he is sorely mistaken. And CreationWiki has clearly shown that many of the arguments that Talk.Origins attempts to refute are indeed valid.

Many of the scientists in the above list lived before the theory of evolution was even proposed. Others knew the theory, but were not familiar with all the evidence for it. Evolution is outside the field of most of those scientists.

Three points:

1. The theory of evolution is not a modern idea. The ancient Greeks first proposed a form of it in the 7th century B.C. [1] 2. The argument "they didn't know any better" doesn't fly, since these claims are often made to destroy notions that creationists don't "do" science or are intellectually inferior to evolutionists. 3. Darwin had no field. He wasn't even a scientist, let alone a knowledgeable biologist.

A couple hundred years ago, before the theory of evolution was developed and evidence for it was presented, virtually all scientists were creationists, including scientists in relevant fields such as biology and geology.

Again, evolution is quite an ancient idea. Evolution was definitely proposed more than 200 years ago.

Today, virtually all relevant scientists accept evolution.

By TO's definition, any scientist that accepts creation is irrelevant.

Even if they did not believe in evolution, all these scientists were firmly committed to the scientific method, including methodological naturalism. They actually serve as counterexamples to the common creationist claim that a naturalistic practice of science is atheistic. Evolution is entirely consistent with a belief in God, including even special creation. Special creation need not refer to the creation of every animal; it can refer simply to creation of the universe, of the first life, or of the human soul, for example. Many of the above scientists were not creationists in the sense that Henry Morris uses the term.

According to TO, creationists 200 years ago could use the scientific method, but none of them can today. Perhaps, however, these scientists serve as an example that one does not need to always assume naturalistic explanations to be a good scientist.

Since Mark Isaak is not a Christian, Christians should feel free to (and are pretty much obligated to) ignore his philosophical views. Isaak really has no business telling us what Christians should and should not believe.

According to TO, "many" amounts to three out of about thirty. And again, I seriously doubt TO has done enough research to know this, considering that he cites a grand total of zero sources in support of his claims.


Responses to Anticreationist Assertions
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