#619: David DeWitt

Dr. David A. DeWitt, a neuroscientist with some background in biochemistry, is nevertheless on CMI’s list of scientists who accept a Biblical account of creation. Those who suspect a modicum of compartmentalization, dishonesty, and self-delusion are thus in for some easy predictions. DeWitt is a frequent contributor to Answers in Genesis, and responsible for a lot of AiG’s most egregious bullshit on evolution. He has also had some publications in Answers in Genesis’s House Journal, Answers, and his work has been used as a source in Ray Comfort’s legendary “Evolution: A Fairy-Tale for Grownups”, which is not something good people would mention on their CVs.

So where do you take your career when you have a real degree but no real understanding of the method of the field in which you have your degree? Yes, DeWitt is no less than the Director of the Center for Creation Studies at Falwell’s Liberty University, and teaches their mandatory “creation studies” course. You can see a report from an “advanced section” of his class (for biology majors) here, where he uses the movie “March of the Penguins” to illustrate that the penguins that get eaten are the ones who are unlucky (or, more likely, evil), not the ones who are less adapted. Hence evolution is false. Duh.

His book, Unraveling the Origins Controversy, is reviewed here. The reviewer (Rosenhouse) had to take issue with some examples of quote-mining, dishonesty, and distortions. Who would have suspected.

DeWitt and one Jed Macosko were also biological advisors to the free webgame CellCraft, and it sort of shows, in a rather subversive manner. He was also credited in Frank Peretti’s novel Monster, which really tells you all you need to know.

Diagnosis: Standard, zealous fuckwit, responsible for churning out shitloads of ignorant addleheads through his classes at Liberty U, and hence a significant negative force in the world these days.

#601: Jack Cuozzo

Jack Cuozzo is a dentist and Young Earth Creationist whose main contribution to the lunacy movement is his belief that Neanderthals were ordinary humans who lived for hundreds of years (as in the Bible) causing their skulls to continue to grow and morph – despite, of course, the fact that the age of fossilized individuals can be determined (and has been determined not to be hundreds of years) by other means, for instance by examining tooth development (as in here), which suggests that Cuozzo missed some classes during his training as a dentist. Cuozzo spelled out his view in his book Buried Alive, and used it to argue for the ridiculous idea that creatures have undergone devolution since the Fall, i.e. “a gradual loss of genetic information due to mutation” (Adam and Eve were genetically perfect, and it is a standard creationist canard that mutation can only lead to poorer functioning, never mind that they don’t have a clue about what the technical term “information” means). Hence, Neanderthals were just superior human beings. It should be unnecessary to point out that the whole creationist notion of devolution, which is based on medievalistic teleological assumptions about directions of evolution, has nothing to do with science. You can find a rebuttal of some of the falsehoods and dishonesties of Cuozzo’s book here, and a general review here.

Interestingly, Cuozzo also spends some efforts refuting the claims of fellow creationists that Neanderthals were just ordinary humans that suffered from arthritis or rickets or similar diseases, since that would contradict his assumption that the Neanderthals must have been better than us.

Cuozzo classifies most older hominid specimens as “apes” (rather arbitrarily), which is another piece of evidence that the creationist classifications of these are entirely arbitrary and that the hominids in question are actually somewhere in between present humans and something else (this one is illuminating).

Diagnosis: Standard fare. Though Cuozzo is surely an intelligent guy, his lack of understanding of evidence, combined with an unhealthy dose of confirmation bias, is not going to lead him to anything resembling reality. Sorry.

#586: Lita Cosner

Lita Cosner has a BA in Biblical Studies from Oklahoma Wesleyan University and is a member of Creation Ministries International. She has contributed frequently to such incisive, scientifically solid journals as Creation magazine, the Journal of Creation, and the Creation Ministries International's website, on topics such as pro-life, New Testament studies, alleged Bible contradictions and errors, and general apologetics topics, primarily from a presuppositionalist standpoint. She has, for instance, argued that the teaching of evolution makes it much harder for the church to expand and grow, since people start doubting the inerrancy of the Bible. Therefore evolution is wrong. And science is areligion, too. To bolster her argument from adverse consequences, she has also pointed out the inherent racist upshots of the theory of evolution. After all, evolutionary theory entails (according to Cosner) that “More ape-like = less evolved”. Of course evolution does not entail this, and the whole notion of apes being “less evolved” than humans is a mainstay of creationist misunderstanding. More interestingly is how Cosner can take the claim, even if it were true, to entail that evolution is racist – the tacit premise needed is rather illuminating. The whole thing is very similar to but better written than this. Creationism, of course, is not racist, since we are all descended from Noah – fully and deliberately overlooking the fact that one of the most prominent justifications for racism is exactly that very idea.

She defends the writings of G.K. Chesterton (apart from the fact that Chesterton seems to have been too sympathetic to science), and claims that “Chesterton also successfully debated some of the leading anti-Christians of his day, such as George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow. 17 Against Darrow, he was much more successful than William Jennings Bryan, winning the audience vote about 2–1.” Clearly Chesterton’s rhetorical skills settle the issue.

Diagnosis: Cosner’s arguments and conclusion constitute a study case of what happens to the standards of good reasoning if truth is deemed unimportant and other standards are used instead (e.g. blind faith). Her influence is probably rather limited, however.

#546: Kyle Butt

Kyle Butt has both a B.A. with a double major in Bible and communications, and an M.A. in New Testament. Clearly his science education is impeccable, and he seems to be viewed as a lofty authority in the circles he frequents, i.e. the hallways of the Bible department at Apologetics Press. His scientific outreach consists of being a speaker at at youth rallies, lectureships, Gospel meetings, “and so on”, and he is apparently editor for the Apologetics Press’s Discovery Magazine, “a colorful monthly magazine on Scripture and science for kids,” concerned mostly with miracles, Bible apologetics, and disproving evolution.

As you’d expect, Butt is an ludicrously insane young earth creationist who claims to have (conclusive) evidence for the flood. Unfortunately, Butt’s ability to distinguish evidence from imagination is less than fully developed, and his reasoning skills are not quite impeccable either. Here is his own argument that since science has made mistakes before – giving one example of a (putative) mistake that science itself corrected – the Bible is an accurate portrayal of verifiable reality, and “the idea that scientific ’findings’ trump every other source of information is simply false.” As he so eloquently puts it: “information in science books changes from year to year. […] Yet the biblical text has stood for centuries. Its integrity has surpassed that of any book ever printed. And the scientific information in it coincide perfectly with all factual data.” Assigning the (putative) unchanging commands of the Bible to dogma and confirmation bias in the face of falsifying evidence apparently doesn’t cross his mind. And all gaps in knowledge are evidence for the existence of God. There are some comments on his work here, and here.

Together with one Eric Lyons, Butt wrote “Dinosaurs Unleashed: A True Story Of Dinosaurs And Humans”, which is, needless to say, not a true story. It is picked apart in some detail here. Butt has also penned an interesting treatise; see comment 18 in this link) called “Defending the Bible’s Position on Slavery.”

Diagnosis: As the saying goes he tends to pull his ideas out of himself. Probably relatively unimportant, but his stuff gets linked to by the most incoherent internet trolls from time to time. 

#537: Walt Brown

Walter T. Brown is an engineer, young earth creationist Kent Hovind-style, and director of his own ministry with the Orwellian name Center for Scientific Creation (which seems to consist of Walt Brown), for which he works full time as a ”researcher”, writer, and speaker. According to his self-published book ”Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood”, Brown has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT, and he may be considered one of the leaders of the creation science movement (this excellent overview over the creation movement at least awards him a relatively prominent place).

In 1998, Brown was appointed to a committee reviewing Arizona's state science standards, but despite his attempts he failed to remove evolution from the Arizona state science standards.

His main publication is his already mentioned book ”In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,” in which he argues for flood geology, claims that the works of other scientists does not support evolution (which, as expected, is primarily based on misrepresenting them), and attempts to explain parts of reality that fits poorly with the Bible (astronomy, for instance). His general strategy is to argue that moderen science cannot explain these astronomical and geological phenomena, even though it can, and that therefore goddidit. Some criticism can be found here. His ”20 questions for evolutionists” are dealt with here, and his own claim that evolutionists refuse to debate him, therefore he is right, is dealt with here.

Brown’s primary positive contribution is his hydroplate theory – according to his bio he learnt some geology after(!) developing the theory – which is remarkably silly.

Brown apparently maintains rather contentious relations with other creationist organizations; Answers in Genesis has a standing offer to Brown to publish some of his material in their ”journals”, though Brown has thus far declined; the old earth creationist organization Answers in Creation has published material rebutting Brown's hydroplate theory, on the other hand, and The Christian American Scientific Affiliation (which doesn’t seem to be creationist) has debunked Brown’s video ”God's Power and Scriptures Authority”.

Bob Enyart’s bulldog, the incredibly dense and dishonest Will Duffy, thinks Walt Brown is one of the greatest scientists ever, and Brown is taken to be an authority on evolution by Conservapedia despite his complete lack of competence or training in the field, and anauthority on astronomy by others, despite his rather startling lack of even minimal understanding of the field. The WND has uncritically published some of his nonsense, such as his claims that Noah’s flood created the asteroids and comets in the solar system (discussed here).

Diagnosis: Babbling beefhead and denialist whose main techniques are, as one would expect, ignorance, misrepresentation, goddidit, and – if everything else fails – appeal to ”worldviews”. He may not be the most influential creationist out there, but is often pulled out by the densest members of the creationist movement and probably does have some negative impact on the world.