RELEASE #167
6 JULY 1998
for immediate release
CONTACT:
MARCY DUBROFF
(717) 291-3837
E-MAIL: [email protected]
WEB: HTTP://WWW.FANDM.EDU
F&M Scientist Draws Timeline in the Sand Donald Wise refutes creationist views with geologic timetable
LANCASTER, Pa. -- Ever since 1925, when the Scopes "monkey trial" brought the contest between Darwinism and religion to the fore of the nation's attention, the debate between creationism and evolution has raged.
Now, in 1998, the "creation science" that insists on a literal interpretation of the Bible is again gaining popularity in school board meeting rooms and legislative halls across the country. Concerned by the growing influence of these creationists in his home of Lancaster County, Pa., Franklin & Marshall geosciences professor and research associate Donald Wise decided to combat their claims by using what he knows best -- science.
Wise, who has 40 years of teaching and research experience, including stints as the chief scientist at NASA's Lunar Exploration Office and as chair emeritus of the geology and geography departments at the University of Massachusetts, is using his scientific knowledge to debunk creationist views that man and the universe were created in six days.
Wise has formulated a composite time frame of geologic events based on creationist literature and contends that the geologic record offers the best arguments against creationism's claims to science. In a recent article titled "Creationism's Geologic Time Scale," published in March/April edition of "American Scientist" magazine, Wise examines both mainstream and creation science models of the earth.
The piece highlights what Wise sees as gaping inconsistencies in the latter, and shows how scientific evidence increasingly supports modern paleontology.
"The time has come to stop fighting defensive skirmishes," Wise says, "and to start challenging creationists to defend in toto what they call science -- humorous absurdities and all."
Wise contends that the creationist model is riddled with gaps and "ludicrous interpretations" and that scientists must take care to detect "how parts of the geologic record are cleverly distorted or ignored or how obscure literature citations or in-house creationist studies are expanded into general principles."
For example, Wise notes that since the beginning of fossil-hunting, the earth's rock layers have yielded a record of life with a consistent pattern - more and more complex life forms appear at progressively higher and newer levels. Creationists, on the other hand, argue that during the great Biblical flood, the higher-order animals ran to the mountain tops to escape the rising waters and were the last to be washed away and buried.
According to Wise, this interpretation fails to explain "why burial sequences for fish, marine reptiles and marine mammals followed the same pattern of increasing complexity, when these groups should have been relatively unaffected by rising waters."
A wide variety of publications are now supplying Bible-based earth histories. Armed with these materials, creationists are now arguing that any teaching of evolution should be balanced by teaching of "evidence against evolution."
"The creationist strategy has been to portray this debate as a choice between their cartoon of science or their particular brand of religion," Wise writes. "As scientists, we must emphasize repeatedly that the argument against creationism is not against religion as such, but rather against a fringe group's attempt to force the Bible into public schools in the guise of a science textbook."
For more information on Dr. Wise and his "American Scientist" article, contact Marcy Dubroff, Franklin & Marshall Office of College Relations, 717-291-3837.
--30--
RSS