Creationists are prevented from publishing in science journals (Talk.Origins)

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Response ArticleThis article (Creationists are prevented from publishing in science journals (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 CA325:

Creationists are prevented from publishing in science journals

Source: Morris, Henry M. Bigotry in science (#114, June of 1998)

CreationWiki response:

The wording of this claim is a straw man. Morris clearly states that creationists do publish in journals and even builds a brief case for it. A more accurate claim is "Creationists are prevented from publishing articles with open creationist conclusions."

(Talk.Origins quotes in blue)

There is no doubt in my mind that some creationists do have as their highest priorities politics and religious evangelism, but for the most part creationists are open minded and their goal is to search for the truth and this truth gives us the revelation of young earth creationism.

Also, the founders of modern science were all creationists. For example, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and Louis Pasteur.

There are several mechanisms that cut back the amount of creation science articles. Let us look at a few:

A) Papers that have open creation conclusions are often accused of pseudo-science just because of their conclusion. Creationists must tone them down before they get published. Once this is taken into mind it is hard to tell what is written by a creationist and what is not.

B) Many creationists might lose their job if they publish openly, their creationistic conclusions. Dr. Jerry Bergman has documented not dozens, not hundreds, but THOUSANDS of accounts of genuine scientists being abused for their belief in Scientific Creationism/Intelligent design. Some teachers have been fired just for teaching the two model approach. Around 12 percent of those interviewed received death threats because of their views.

• Jerry Bergman: The Criterion (Onesimus publishers, 1984)

The main problem with this survey is quite simple. It missed articles like this:

Basic Functional States in the Evolution of Light-driven Cyclic Electron Transport in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, 104 [1983]: 289-299

Also, they did not consider articles that did not openly support creationism, so there is no real way to know for sure how many creationist articles were published during those brief few years.

• RAE For more information.

Furthermore, from 1968 to the present, Dr. D. Russell Humphreys about 30 published articles in mainstream technical journals and Dr. Herrmann has had around 70 abstracts published by the American Mathematical Society.

This is merely two people. Then take in mind that there are far more creationists out there. Surely the number of papers published by creationists is in the thousands?!

Talk.Origins leaves out that the attorney in charge of the case chose to do the case without help from ICR and others. Some think the attorney threw away the case to protect his future.

Also, one great example is that made by Robert Gentry. When he tried to get his work into Nature (which he did in his later years, after toning down the creationist conclusion) it was rejected because of "wild speculation," and it was "unworthy of publication."

One of the judges even told him that he, Gentry, would have a better chance to get his work published if he removed the “absurd” conclusions.

• Halos For more information.

Talk.Origin isn't getting the point. Any informed creationist will tell you that many evolutionists' claim that since creationists do not publish in SECULAR journals, creationism is a pseudo-science. This claim, that creationists are prevented from publishing in journals, is very intolerant, and shuts down needed debate and questions to which evolution assumes the answers.

Many critics argue that if a paper is published in a creationists' journal, it is pseudo-science. This is completely bogus. The main objection they use, to pin creationism as being pseudo-science, is that God, or the supernatural, created life and natural laws to sustain it cannot be observed or tested, therefore it is not science. This is equally just as unobservable, and untestable (i.e., pseudo-science) an assumption as evolutionism, which assumes that completely natural mechanisms, such as abiogenesis, created life, and natural laws to sustain it.

A: All these articles have had their creationist conclusion toned down, but it is nice that TO admits that creationists do publish in journals (even if the conclusions are toned down).

B: The wording of the claim is wrong. It should be "Creationists are prevented from publishing articles with openly creationist conclusions in journals." Once this is taken into mind, the number shrinks.

Except creationists must tone down their conclusions. As cited earlier, Gentry got one of his paper rejected just because of his creationist conclusion (though later papers made it, after he altered the conclusion).

This is just one example. They fail to mention the reason WHY the paper was rejected and there are many journals out there that were created for the purpose to debunk creationism.

See Also

• Peer review

Responses to Anticreationist Assertions
Talk.Origins Index to Creationist Claims - responses to Index to Creationist Claims Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ - responses to Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ. Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions - responses to FABNAQ. EvoWiki