Dumpster diving among the signatories to the Discovery
Institute’s petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism produces some hilariously inane results, and Karl Duff is definitely one of the
sillier. Duff has an Sc.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT but is not a scientist, and has as far as
we can tell no academic affiliation. He is, however, on the Flood Science Review panel for In Jesus’ Name Productions, a production company that
apparently wants to make a movie about the Flood (no idea of how the project is
proceeding) that “could have historic
impact […] if the science upon which it is based can be sufficiently defended.
It could even represent a significant challenge to the validity of the theory
of Evolution.” Indeed it could, but the antics of the panel bear little
resemblance to anything remotely connected with science. Their webpage is here.
According to the webpage the panel consists of “independent highly qualified
scientists”, including, in addition to Duff:
- Our old acquaintance John Reed.
- David K. Bassett, affiliated with
nothing less than Carl Baugh’s Creation Evidence Museum.
- Mark Horstemeyer, who – unlike the
others – enjoys a real academic affiliation (though utterly unrelated to the
scientific issues at hand, of course) by being a professor in the Mechanical
Engineering Department at Mississippi State University; he is also the founder
of the Association for Christian Graduate Researchers.
- Todd Styer, who, the website
assures us, “has studied mainstream science” (though his education consists of
a Master of Business Administration).
- Christopher Lyndon, (disconcertingly)
a high school physics teacher with some science background in irrelevant
fields.
- Rob Thomson, another fundie with
an unrelated “MS in applied physics” (i.e. utterly disqualified for the kind of
scientific work the panel claims to be engaged in).
- Wayne Spencer, yet another
non-scientist.
- Raymond Strom, a Calgary-based
businessman with – big surprise – little or no scientific background.
It’s the type
of motley crew that usually is found behind these kinds of projects, in other
words: a minority of them has any science background whatsoever, and none of
them has a science background in any remotely relevant fields.
Duff
himself has built a bit of a career writing books like Dating, Intimacy, and the Teenage Years (check out the editorialreview),
as well as Bride of the High Places, Restoration of Men and Restoration of Marriage, which
presumably continues in the same vein. He has also written numerous creationist
screeds, such as “Life is Organized Without Darwinian Transitions”;
I leave it to readers to spot the creationist PRATTs in that one (seriously, this is Kent Hovind-territory).
Bingo sheet here.
Diagnosis:
Cargo cult science hardly comes more pitifully delusional than this, but Duff’s
impact is probably limited – he doesn’t exactly put the Discovery Institute’s petition in a good light, but neither does anything else.
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