From: Duff,Robert Joel (rjduff@uakron.edu)
Date: Wed Oct 01 2003 - 21:25:29 EDT
Hi Wayne,
No doubt there is bias among editors and reviewers. I've definitely encountered biases in my own field. Many of the main characters, and thus reviewers, of literature dealing with land plant evolution have long thought, based on little evidence, that liverworts are the basal extant lineage of land plants. I happen to think otherwise based on what I think is at least as compelling data but publishing data contrary to that idea has been very difficult though not impossible.
What I am asking is that the YEC demonstae the bias rather than just claiming the bias. Yes, there is bias but what is the exact nature of that bias and how is it expressed? The YEC would want you to believe that bias is expressed in particular forms but I'm not so sure this is what they would see. Do you think the reviewers of their articles if submitted would attempt to provide reasons for their rejection or would they simply resort to name calling and say we can't publish anything by those people. I think there would be some reviewers that would provide rude and unintelligent responses (I've had some of those with respect to my own work) but I also think that some would provide what they feel are real reasons why the manuscrips should not be published in a particular journal and it would be intersted to see if the YEC would acknowledge the criticisms and be able to respond to them and show how these reasons are bogus. If they were to submit, get reviews, show the re!
views to the public, as permitted, it would go a long way to blunting some of the criticism they recieve. One would think they would want to demonstrate they are trying even if ultimately they must fall back on their original claims of bias. The lack of effort (and it wouldn't even be that much effort!) suggests they really don't care about trying to gain legitimacy with their Christian peers but ONLY do what they think they need to do to appeal to the base constituency that doesn't require evidence to support any of their claims.
Joel
Joel wrote:
It has been too easy for us to claim they should publish in refereed profession journals and then have them respond with generic claims about biases. I think it is time to push for scientific evidence to back the claims rather than innuendo.
There almost surely is bias in the scientific journals. Not all of it is
undeserved, but I would wager that it is almost certainly grossly
unfair. Even for rather prosaic issues, sometimes the mindset of
some scientists toward people who are different does not particularly
impress me. In almost blatant double standard form,
they can also keep asking for more and more "evidence" to fill in
some grasping-at-straws "gap" they're desperately hanging onto,
they can also ignore data, and they can try to dismiss problems with
half-baked appeals to future discoveries,..... just like Creationists
(at least) appear to be doing most of the time. Both sometimes even
resort to various forms of "politics" when their "science" can't stand
on its own, which is probably one of the __greatest__ evils of all I think.
-----
Could this be me one day? Knowledge and wisdom are best evidenced
by signs of humility and magnanimity, in my opinion. Temptation is hard,
but I _hope_ this is not the example I will set.
-----
Nevertheless, a __sound__ theory is not shaken by hard testing. In fact, it
only gets __much__ stronger and more unassailable by its opponents.
Evolution is probably the most opposed theory in the entire history
of science. It will probably will take more than 400 years for some
pious folk to "forgive" Darwin. It is very unfortunate because I still think
the roots of the best science are strongly influenced by scripture. I just
hope we (Christians) set a much better example in this new century.
by Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
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