Re: [asa] Denver RATE Conference (Thousands...Not Billions)_Part 6 & The End

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James Mahaffy (mahaffy@dordt.edu)          Phone: 712 722-6279
498 4th Ave NE
Biology Department                                     FAX :  712 722-1198
Dordt College, Sioux Center IA 51250-1697
>>> On 10/13/2007 at 9:45 AM, in message
<20071013144846.306E0710F48@gray.dordt.edu>, "Robert Schneider"
<schneider98@gmail.com> wrote:
> About Gary Parker. When he was on the AIG staff he gave a two-day "creation
> seminar" in Berea, KY, about ten years ago. I heard him speak at Berea
> College during an afternoon and evening presentation. What a colleague of
> mine learned about Parker is that he does not have a Ph.D. in biology but an
> Ed.D. in biology education. My colleague asked Parker about it in a Q & A,
> and he spent ten minutes justifying his biology background before admitting
> that he was an Ed.D. I think it is a stretch to call him a "scientist." 
I know Gary from why back when he was teaching at a decent college, Dordt College.  Yes he was not and has not become a research scientist, but he did an effective job of teaching biology.  Dordt then had a large teaching mission and he did well. A EdD was and probably still is a good degree for teaching undergrads and I think he got it from Bowling green.
He is also a good amateur fossil collector.  Some of the fossils I still use at dordt were donated by Gary.  
He was and perhaps still is a good science teacher.  
He has as far as I know done little if any publishing since then.
In
> his book _Creation Facts of Life_, his presentation on genetics is
> ludicrous, but sounds very authoritative (the YEC rhetorical approach). Your
> description of his presentation, Steve, fit the Parker I heard to a tee.
> He's quite slick. In one Q & A a physics major challenged Gentry's work on
> polonium halos, citing a few scientific papers. Parker dismissed the
> critique with polite disdain. Parker is basically a preacher, as you said,
> and he's good at it. Those of us academics in the audience knew it was
> useless to challenge him and just made notes of things he said in order to
> comment on them to any students who might ask. Interestingly only about
> fifty students showed up for his afternoon presentations, and most of them
> were "bobbing heads" as another students called them (i.e, the campus
> student YECs, constantly nodding in agreement). The evening session
> consisted of an audience of mostly people from local conservative churches
> that jointly sponsored the seminar. He preached to them, starting with
> Genesis.
> 
> 
> 
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