This one is truly amazing. It’s from the creation scientists at the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) — the fountainhead of young-earth creationist wisdom,
Their post it titled Evaluating Evolutionary Claims. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
Hello, my name is Dr. Jerry Bergman. [Hi, Jerry!] I‘m a new member of ICR‘s staff, but I‘m not new to this ministry. I have been reading ICR‘s literature since close to the beginning of the organization.
Can you imagine that? Then he says:
I watched ICR grow and witnessed the good work that it‘s done in the lives of my friends and acquaintances. As a science major in college, this ministry was critical in allowing me to objectively evaluate the many claims my professors made about Darwinism.
Being one of Jerry’s professors must have been, ah … challenging. After that he tells us:
Now, having read Acts & Facts [ICR’s magazine] for several decades [Wow!], I am able to effectively separate the empirical evidence based on science from unjustified extrapolations by Darwinists. This skill is very important no matter what beliefs you take to the table.
And that’s the entire post — except that it ends with this:
Please donate today to support ICR‘s vital work. [Link omitted.]
We wanted to know more about Jerry, so we hunted around and found ICR’s bio page on him. It’s amazing! Here’s what they say about him:
Dr. Jerry Bergman earned three master’s degrees at the Medical College of Ohio and worked full-time on cancer research in the department of experimental pathology. His nine earned degrees include a Ph.D. from Wayne State University, a Ph.D. from Columbia Pacific University, an M.S in Biomedical Science, and a Master of Public Health from the Medical College of Ohio. He taught at the college level for over 40 years and served on undergraduate and graduate faculties at Bowling Green State University, the University of Toledo, and the Medical College of Ohio. Dr. Bergman has over 1,000 publications in science journals and has authored or co-authored over 43 books and monographs. He joined ICR in 2018 as Research Associate. His latest work focuses on genetic entropy and how it confirms the Bible and refutes evolution.
We don’t know what to make of this, but it seems that at last, Jerry is where he belongs.
Copyright © 2018. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
He has written for AiG for years.
He’s the subject of your Sept. 14th post about the Wright Brothers.
Or, the article he wrote was the “inspiration” for your blog post.
Genetic entropy is in the bible, good to know.
What a shock, young Earth creationist Jerry Bergman also has a PhD degree in human biology from a diploma mill (Columbia Pacific University). He lost his psychology position at Bowling Green State University for the large volume of low quality papers that he had created. He has also claimed that the Galileo affair was the result of evil secular scientists who were out to discredit the catholic church, and the there is no biological basis for gayness so it is OK to discriminate against them. None of his 600 papers are in refereed science journals of course. His is also a fellow at the ASA (American Scientific Association) an anti-evolution organization started from a fundamentalist Missouri Lutheran synod, which also requires that all *voting* members subscribe to an article of faith that the bible is an inerrant guide to morals. None voting members to not have to take the asinine oath.
http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2010/05/23-jerry-bergman.html
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jerry_Bergman
What’s not generally known is that ICR management has brought Jerry in to lift the game with their publications. They’re feeling like they’re falling behind the pack. The Board is ropeable; apparently last year they only published eight books and 12 journals. So, they got in touch with Jerry, er, Dr Jerry (he’s a bit touchy about that; reckons he paid for it, and he’s entitled to it).
Word is that at the job interview panel he said, “give me a pad, a pencil and I’ll see you back here in 30 minutes.” And when they came back, he’d drafted three journal articles and had fleshed out chapters for a new book. He’s the answer to ICR’s prayers, and with their readership it’s a case of ‘never mind the quality, feel the width’. So it’s a win-win all round.
Re Bergman’s scholarship in science.
I invite readers to read this review by Aaron Baldwin of one of several books he wrote within the past 12 months (Fossil Forensics)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3EDVNIJ2XOJPG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1944918108
American Scientific Affiliation, that is. They’ve been discussed by the NCSE.
Invitation accepted, CJ. Unfortunately AB already begins with a grave mistake.
“If you or I or anyone is attempting to make a strong case for or against a viewpoint one of the most important tools required is to demonstrate that you have a familiarity with the material ….”
This by definition does not apply to creacrappers or they wouldn’t be capable of producing at least 90% of the crap they produce. Competence as referred to by AB a but further is not a requirement for any creacrapper but rather a disqualification.
Clicking some links brought me to this civic and scathing review.
http://kittywhumpus.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-thought-it-went-really-well-until-he.html
Nothing has changed in those 9 years.
Mark Germano says: “He’s the subject of your Sept. 14th post about the Wright Brothers.”
You’re right, but I had forgotten all about him.
@Zetopan, @Draken, the ASA is firmly theistic evolutionist. I’m not sure exactly what role they see for God in evolution, whether they see Him as somehow intervening, or as having set up the rules so that evolution would result, but that’s their problem, not mine. Draken’s link shows NCSE publishing a statement that makes ASA’s commitment to scientific reality very clear. They have decidedly evolved from their origins, and on evolution vs creationism, they are our allies.
ASA published an excellent summary of why we can trust radiocarbon dating here (abstract publicly available; full text will be from January): https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2018/PSCF6-18Davidson.pdf. I have corresponded with the authors, Gregg Davidson and Ken Wolgemuth, who were helpful with questions of detail and gave me full access to that paper. My report on it is here (spoiler — the answer’s yes): https://paulbraterman.wordpress.com/2018/07/07/can-we-trust-radiocarbon-dating/. They are also among the authors of Grand Canyon, Monument to an ancient Earth.
@FrankB
‘Clicking some links brought me to this civic and scathing review.’
Bergman has also written a good half dozen books on ‘The Dark Side of Darwin’, on the basically no Darwin = no Hitler motif.
Let us remember that present-day anti-evolutionists generally agree that:
*Natural evolution takes place within the “kind” (something more than the species, certainly including “mankind”), known as “micro-evolution”
*Without intelligent, directed intervention, natural changes, such as micro-evolution, inevitably lead to deterioration (the so-called “second law of thermodynamics”)
It would be interesting to hear how anti-evolutionists can distance themselves, as I am certain that they would, from some of those early-20th century social-political movements.
Beware of persons who flaunt their multiple M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. And of institutions who hire such people.
There are certain Master’s degrees which are considered essential for some jobs. You will find people with an MD and MPH, a Ph.D. with MLS, etc. There is a program in many medical schools which offer a combined MD and Ph.D.
An MBA and JD combined is not unusual (a JD is the first degree in law – there are also a LLM and JSD).
And then there are honorary degrees. In the USA, it would be unusual for someone to advertise their LLD.
Hey, I have three masters degrees. One from my undergraduate institution (for saying out of prison for 3 years following the degree), one from my graduate institution (for getting through the first year without a grade lower than a B), and one from my former place of employment (for, you know, being on the faculty for a year).
Do I put these letters after my name (or even mention them on my CV)? Hell no, I’m a real scientist.
Not sure why anyone would pursue 9 degrees; maybe because they were unemployable with 8?
Douglas E says: “Not sure why anyone would pursue 9 degrees”
When I saw his picture, I guessed that it was to stay in school and avoid the draft. That might explain a few of his degrees — but nine?
I think it’s sweet of the ICR to open up a Home For Retired Creationists. The Berg is a 6-day creationist and expert cherry picker and pathological liar. How he missed the job of Director of Homeland Security I’ll never know.
It’s always fun to do a Monster job search and see the disparity in openings for biologists and for creationists.
Bergman has been on the Creationist Speaker tour circuit for years.
Didn’t he debate with PZ Myer once upon a time?
@Zetopan, @Draken @Paul Braterman
I can confirm that ASA fully accepts all of modern science. However, they do accommodate ID (they provide a ‘big tent’, I was told).
I’ve attended two of their conferences, last year in Denver where the main topic was the environment, global warming etc. This July it was in Boston with emphasis on biotechnology and bioethics. One of the main speakers this year was Francis Collins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9xTE3imk84&t=2554s
@Draken: the link I gave above reviews that debate.
If ICR is trying to masquerade as a scientific institution, it’s a little careless of him to keep referring to it as a ministry.
THE EVALUATION OF AN EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM DESIGNED TO REDUCE RECIDIVISM AMONG SECOND FELONY CRIMINAL OFFENDERS.
BERGMAN, GERALD RAY. Wayne State University, 1976.
This appears to have been a degree in Educational Psychology.
@Arcy
The ICR refers to itself as a ministry! It’s right there on their website. They still hawk their phony “Masters” degrees in apologetics which will set you back a couple of grand. Their motto is “Fleecing the Flock for Over 50 Years.”
Bergman was a Jehovah’s Witness until the early 1970s, then became an Evangelical. The JWs are not young-earth creationists in the usual sense (they accept an old earth but, when Bergman was a JW, taught that life was only about 20,000 years old; today they don’t know what to teach), so it’s unclear to me how Bergman switched over to YECism.
I’ve come across Bergman’s writing on evolution/creation from time to time, and have been struck by his willingness to misrepresent things to support YECism. So sad.
@hans435: “However, they do accommodate ID (they provide a ‘big tent’, I was told).”
ID is one of the current creationists’ fall back positions, it is merely religion pretending to be science. This was even settled in a court case quite some time ago[1] and the NCSE among others has also kept track of the history of ID[2,3,4]. It is quite anti-science.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
2. https://ncse.com/creationism/general/wedge-document
3. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Wedge_Strategy
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
Intelligent Design is the product of creationism with the removal of (1) overt reference to the religious concept of a divine creator and (2) choice between the Old Earth and the Young Earth varieties of creationism.
A by-product of those removals was that it was left without any positive content at all, its only position being that there was something or other wrong with evolutionary biology (there is a better explanation than naturalistic evolution, without any description of what that alternative might be).
Like YEC, no “what, where, why, how”, but also no “who” or “when”.
It is rather difficult to keep to such a spartan stance, so often enough its propnents lapse into religious language. Indeed, the condemnation of “naturalism” looks quite a bit like an endorsement of some sort of religion.
The strict “don’t ask don’t tell” version of ID would probably attract about as much interest as a “scientific geocentrism”, one without reference to a literal reading of the Bible. Perhaps something which a pathologist of philosophy would take a look at. Or an amateur collector of fads.
“Dr. Bergman has over 1,000 publications in science journals”
This claim is absolute nonsense. More than 1,000 publications would put him on par with Eugene Koonin, one of the most prolific biologists alive today, if not the most.
Just to give you an idea of how many papers some of the “big names” in various fields of biology have published, according to google scholar (only counting papers with citations to try and rule out duplicates, abstracts, etc):
Eugene Koonin: ~ 1100
Fred Gage: ~950
Bert Vogelstein: ~800
Eric Lander: ~700
Axel Meyer : ~600
Does Jerry Bergman seem likely to fit into that list?
The vast majority of even very influential researchers publish just a couple of hundred papers at most during their entire careers. The scientists I listed above were only able to co-author so many papers because as they became more senior they oversaw more and more junior scientists. When they have a lab or collaborative group consisting of dozens to hundreds of researchers, all working on separate projects, it’s easy to see how it’s possible for them to have their name on dozens of papers each year as a supervisor.
Did Jerry Bergman ever work in such a senior role, presiding over dozens of scientists for decades? Of course not. It’s simply impossible for him to have published over 1,000 scientific articles. Indeed, Bergman’s own ResearchGate profile lists just 3 scientific papers (published between 1998 and 2001), with an additional 7 historical articles, 6 of which were published in the infamous “Rivista di biologia” – a pseudo-journal that was run by a YEC until recently. These articles have titles like: “The history of the human female inferiority ideas in evolutionary biology”.
TL;DR – Jerry Bergman has NOT published “over 1,000” papers in scientific journals, not even close.