Watch Your Language
Before I get to the article that I'm featuring below, there are some personal notes that I wanted to share.
Many years ago in Lansing, Michigan, I was browsing a Christian bookstore and found a 4" wide by 8" tall (101.6 mm x 228.6 mm) booklet of 28 pages called "Should Evolution Be Taught?" by Dr. John N. Moore. I showed it to my father, a pastor in the now thoroughly apostate United Methodist church. He told me that Dr. Moore was his professor of natural science when he attended Michigan State University (he received his BA in 1957), and was given a rough time for disbelieving evolution. Naturally, he was surprised that Dr. Moore was writing in favor of creation science!
Speaking of MSU, an owlhoot going by the name of Richard Lenski objected to scientific evidence against his bacteria experiment, gave some snark, and then blocked me. This is a scientist?
I corresponded with Dr. Moore a couple of times (he thought maybe he remembered my father), and obtained an autographed copy of the booklet.
What I did not realize was that Dr. Moore was not only a professor of natural science at MSU, but later, he was instrumental in helping to establish the Creation Research Society. CRS is the oldest American creation science organization, and publishes the scientific peer-reviewed Creation Research Society Quarterly — which Dr. Moore edited for several years. He also wrote several articles and booklets, and was involved in a creation science biology textbook, Biology: A Search for Order in Complexity (which has since been revised).
Of course, the libelous and incompetent tinhorns at (ir)RationalWiki made a list of creation scientists and did not list his accomplishments, only stating, "Dr. John N. Moore, Science Educator * Works in a field completely unrelated to the subject at hand." Amazingly, people use that site a resource.
I have been unable to find out the whereabouts of Dr. Moore after he became less active in the 1990s. Thankfully, he was involved in important work for creation science.
This would be a good time to get on with it, don't you reckon?
We have to be careful with words. Even questions and simple statements can be skewed to color people perceptions, a form of poisoning the well. For example, "science versus creationism", as if an ism" is something undesirable or an aberrant way of thinking.
One of the fundamental points that many creationists emphasize is that people have a mutual understanding of terms. Often, Darwin's ranch hands will play bait 'n' switch by equivocating on some words, especially evolution. When they're not being disingenuous, evolutionists will have naturalistic preconceptions as to the meanings of words, and biblical creationists will be moving form their preconceptions. Dr. Moore points out that many words need careful handling in order to establish better communication between creationists and evolutionists.
In the creation/evolution controversy and battle over biblical authority, much of the dispute may become clearer if writers would carefully provide readers with precise definitions of terminology. In fact, careful, clear definitions might help to resolve the issue for some people.To read the rest, click on "Creationism vs. Evolutionism". Also, for people who like to examine logical fallacies, here is "A Check List on Fallacies of Reasoning to be Avoided by Scholarly, Rational Persons", also by John N. Moore.
For instance, take the word science. It is often employed sloppily, especially when its methods, procedures, and practices of inquiry are not carefully followed. Actually, a proper scientific methodology is limited, in the sense that all scientific hypotheses should be testable and based on recordable, measurable observations in the present. Operational science is measurable, quantitative, mechanical, and correctable. I would submit that a better definition of science should state that it is “a body of knowledge obtained by using our senses in the present, especially observation.”