#506: Edward Blick

Scene: James Inhofe, infamous denialist whose concern for truth and accuracy is legendarily absent, submits a list of ”604 scientists who rejects AGW”. Among the curious assembly of names found on that list – insofar as you didn’t have to sign up for Inhofe’s list, he’d just add you if he interpreted or wished to interpret you as a ”skeptic”, he (probably deliberately) made some, shall we say, controversial choices – in addition to people such as (the Argentinian) Eduardo Ferreyra, orgone ”expert” James DeMeo, certified crackpot Joel Kauffman, and conspiracy theorist Michael R. Fox, who all also appear on a list of ”HIV/AIDS ’rethinkers’”, and in addition to a lot of people with real credentials who deny that they reject AGW, we find people like Chris Allen and this entry’s featured loon: Edward Blick.

At least Edward Blick does reject AGW. He also has credentials, being Professor Emeritus of the Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Unfortunately for his reputation he has also said: “The predecessors of today's unbelievers replaced the Holy Bible's book of Genesis with Darwin's Origin of the Species. Now with the help of Al Gore and the United Nations they are trying to replace the Holy Bible's book of Revelation with the U.N.'s report Anthropogenic Global Warming,” and that “This whole [AGW] scheme is a ‘Trojan Horse’ for global socialism!” And he has argued that climate scientists fail basic reasoning: “How does God control our warming and cooling? Scientists have discovered it is the Sun! Amazing, even grade school children know this.” Yeah, those dumb scientists and their critical thinking skills (apparently Blick misses the fact that the sun does play a rather crucial role in the AGW “scheme”).

Apart from garbled fundamentalist conspiracy mongering, Blick is also devoted to showing how modern science is already explicitly given in the Bible. For instance, when Isaiah says that the obedient ones “shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. 40:28-31), this is an accurate description of modern, cutting-edge research in aerodynamics. Thing is, Blick and other scientists have actually found that eagles can fly for a long time without getting tired, and obviously such uncanny premonitions are evidence that the Bible is accurate and a source of scientific insight.

It’s also worth mentioning Blick’s colleague David Deming, who also made it to Inhofe’s list and who is, well, let’s say that the University of Oklahoma is not coming off in a particularly favorable light.

Both Blick and Deming are also among the signatories of the Discovery Institute’s meaningless petition “A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism”, by the way (the others who are on both lists, as of 2008, are Guillermo Gonzales, Robert Smith (professor of chemistry at the University of Nebraska), and James Wanliss (Associate Professor of Physics, Embry-Riddle University), though there are surely other creationists on Inhofe’s list), another boon to their credibility. Blick has of course, in various books and pamphlets, come clean as a staunch creationist.

Diagnosis: Total fail, at every possible level.