Yesterday we wrote about James Tour: Creationist Organic Chemist. It’s probably just a coincidence, but today the guy is being defended by none other than Bruce Chapman, whom we affectionately call “Chappy.” He’s the founder and president of the Discovery Institute.
Chappy’s position makes him Lord High Keeper of the Discoveroids’ Wedge strategy, and the ultimate leader of all cdesign proponentsists. Therefore, when Chappy speaks, creationists pay attention — and so do we.
Actually, he may not be the Discoveroids’ president any longer. As we reported five months ago in What’s Happening to Bruce Chapman?, their most recently-filed tax return says he’s no longer president. But he’s still their chairman, so he’s still a big deal.
Chappy’s latest contribution to the Discoveroids’ creationist blog is Detective Columbo of Chemistry: “I Don’t Understand Evolution”. He says, with bold font added by us:
In the spirit of Peter Falk’s classic TV character Detective Columbo, whose method was to apologize for a lack of comprehension until he finally solved the mystery, a renowned chemist says he doesn’t “understand” evolution. What he means, he subsequently makes clear, is that Darwin’s theory doesn’t make sense to him.
We saw a few episodes of that show. Columbo pretended to be dense, but he always solved the crime. Clever beginning, Chappy. Now let’s get to it:
Dr. James Tour of Rice University, regarded as one of America’s fifty top scientists, is quoted by Christian News about his innocent-sounding discussions with fellow scientists in private.
You remember. Jimmy Tour says he has top secret conversations with other brilliant scientists, and they all whisper that they don’t understand the origin of life. We’re supposed to believe that it’s something they’re afraid to reveal in public. Let’s read on:
Tour signed Discovery’s Scientific Dissent from Darwinism years ago when the National Center for Science Education asserted that only a handful of scientists doubt Darwin’s theory. Our list of dissenters started at 100, then grew to 800. At that point we stopped inviting people to sign it because their names on the list were used by Darwinists to persecute them professionally. Some lost their jobs.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! They stopped at 800 because their creationists were being persecuted! We’re supposed to believe they could have had tens of thousands of names by now, but the Darwinist bullies intimidated everyone. It couldn’t be that some of them lost their jobs because … well, we don’t need to spell out the problems a creationist might encounter in the academic world. It would be the same if someone signed a statement that he didn’t accept the solar system.
Chappy continues:
However, Tour doesn’t seem to have been hurt.
True. That goes for Michael Behe too. Tenure means something. But Chappy is staying with his Darwinist bully scenario as the reason they “closed” their list at 800. His final paragraph says:
Is that possibly because chemists are more open-minded than biologists? Or is the dirty little secret about Darwinism — that it has more public advocates in science than private believers — becoming more apparent?
Well, Chappy, if the “dirty little secret” is out, then you don’t have to be afraid to open up your Scientific Dissent from Darwinism for more signatures. Of all the scientists who are out there — over 120,000 just in the American Association for the Advancement of Science — show us how many you can get. Or is 800 the best you can do?
Copyright © 2014. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Or maybe that biologists deal directly with evolution and actually understand it.
The smarter the scientist, the more narrowly focused they seem to be. The rumpled PHD professor who can’t match his socks and wears the same pants for a week straight as my proof.
Or that chemists don’t know squat about biology and especially evolution. It is interesting that almost all of the biologists on their list that aren’t retired are teaching at Christian colleges with statements of faith. What else could they believe?
The lying delusional evil Chappy wrote:
That is complete 100% feedlot-quality bull [edited out].
Or what passes for normal at the Dishonesty Tute.
What with all of those smart people who dissent from “darwinism”, how is it that nobody has come up with an alternative?
And what I’m looking for, it does not have to be better, to have evidence, nor be scientific. Only that it would describe an account of the variety of life on Earth which tells us what happens, when and where, that things (1) turn out the way they do, (2) rather than their turning out something different, and (3) it doesn’t involve evolution.
An example would tell us how it happens that humans have eyesight with eyeballs in the vertebrate way, rather than the insect way or the octopus way or by any other way. Or how the human body is most like those of chimps and other apes, rather than like any of the other forms that life can take. Something rather simple, relative to the complexity of the totality of life.
And just to make things easy, let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that there are some fatal flaws in evolutionary biology, so the exposition doesn’t have to spend time on why evolution is a failure,
Or would all of those smart people would have us believe that the only “alternative” is that things just happened to turn out as if there have been billions of years of evolution? That pure unconstrained chance is the only alternative? That there doesn’t need to be an explanation?
An Appeal to Ignorance on a grand scale: this smart guy doesn’t understand evolution therefore it must be wrong.
So, of his 800 signatories, how many are named Steve?
http://ncse.com/taking-action/project-steve
800 is probably the maximum number of suckers with degrees they could get to sign on. And five gets you ten that most of them are from outside the life sciences.
“Our list of dissenters started at 100, then grew to 800. At that point we stopped inviting people to sign it because their names on the list were used by Darwinists to persecute them professionally. Some lost their jobs.”
Is this a new claim? It’s the first time I’ve heard them claim that the list almost stopped growing after 800 because they decided to cap it. I know they’re lying– they’re ID proponents, they can’t help it — but I’m wondering if this is a new lie they just minted, or if we’ve seen it before. “Some lost their jobs” is an old lie they never managed to support with facts.
Diogenes Lamp asks: “Is this a new claim?”
I’ve never seen it before. I may have missed some earlier mention of it, but I try to keep up with such things.
Why would a chemist attend a conference on Biology? Or are the fearful evolution-deniers he spoke to in hushed whispers actually open-minded chemists? Or possibly the cleaners on a cigarette break…
Tour defends his views by making up a story that other unnamed scientists agree with him but won’t say so in public. Naturally Chapman will defend him. This is the same lie that Chapman tells.
When I took Physics I in college, I absolutely steamrolled that course. I left it whimpering and crying in the corner. Then I took Physics II, and the bits about electricity had me so confounded that I was lucky to pull out a C.
Moral: I don’t understand how electricity works, so it must be false. Down with Materialistic Franklinism!
Curmie writes> “Columbo pretended to be dense, but he always solved the crime.”
Chappy has a clear advantage here; he doesn’t have to pretend to be dense.
Chappy chirps> “At that point we stopped inviting people to sign it …”
False. The list still up and open for signing: http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/sign_the_list.php
And don’t forget about our very own Gary List too: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17PelfjhvmWSF9I192YKLX3afHBbRBXN-HYhjr8QQmIs/edit?usp=sharing 🙂
docbill quips, “That is complete 100% feedlot-quality bull [edited out].”
After watching Frontline last night, we now realize just how bad feedlot bull[edited out] is, as well as feedlot pig[edited out], chicken[edited out], and turkey[edited out]. It’s all loaded with antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, thanks to the fact that ~80% of antibiotics used in the US are fed to cattle, pigs, and poultry. Since even the creationists agree that micro-evolution takes place, it seems that everyone should get on to this story.
If you missed it, you can watch it here. Definitely worth your time.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/trouble-with-antibiotics/
The Christian Clergy Letter has 12,976 signatures as of 10/13/14
http://www.theclergyletterproject.org/Christian_Clergy/ChrClergyLtr.htm
I note that it does not have any signatures from Guam or American Samoa, but otherwise, every part of the USA – and also “American Clergy Abroad”.
The DI list is so full of misinformation – just perusing the first page and looking at degrees somewhat resembling biology…
We find Todd Watson (Forestry) – an adjunct not an assistant professor
Gerald Wegner runs a extermination company
Charles Detwiler PhD at Cornell eons ago, but teaches at Liberty University (no bias there).
Christopher Williams PhD Ohio State never had an academic appointment – works in gentech
Begona Bradham PhD USC – no record after finishing
Lisanne Winslow teaches at U of Northwestern “Equipping Christ-centered learners and leaders to invest in others and impact the world.”
Her course:
Principles of Biology II — Freshman survey course covering biodiversity- very cool course! This course encourages critical thinking of scientific methodologies regarding the biological world from microbes to mammals. Group work, independent scientific analysis and much class participation as we explore biology from a Christian worldview
At my university, it was very likely that chemistry, physics, or engineering student would graduate without having had a course in biology. On the other hand, it is very likely that music, art, theater, history, english, etc. majors would have had at least one General Education course in biology. It amused/irritated me that we were graduating music majors with more knowledge of biology than our chemistry majors.
If you look at the current list, you can see that many of them are now foreign. Wonder what the number of scientists worldwide is?
michaelfugate: “If you look at the current list, you can see that many of them are now foreign.”
Or dead. The DI doesn’t have much incentive to regularly cull their list. I mean, that’s like… work, y’know? And to what end? It would just make their list even smaller. You make a good point, though. Since many of their signatories appear to be non-US, that 800 number looks pretty small, indeed.