Jonathan,
To correct my mispeaking, what I mean to say in my final paragraph is,
"I probably haven't said anything other than what you yourself have
concluded." Sorry for any confusion.
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: Russ Humphreys
> Hello, Jonathan and to all reading these postings,
>
> I've just joined this listserv, and am glad to be taking part in the
> discussions. After looking through and reading some of this February's
> postings in the archives, I have a sense of what topics have drawn
interest
> and comments. I'll be wanting to contribute and to benefit from the
> comments others contribute, for reasons I'll give in another message.
>
> Some thoughts, Jonathan, to your question. Thompson would have to
> answer Humphreys' charge that he has misread H's use of the data, and I
hope
> you will hear directly from him. What I think you can do for your friend
at
> church, more importantly, is to ask him to review H's piece and ask
himself
> if he thinks the language and tone is worthy of a Christian who finds
> himself in disagreement with other Christians. H. could have expressed
his
> disagreement, even strongly, without engaging in what I think any
> disinsterested observer would consider intemperate, insulting and
accusatory
> expressions. His condemnation of Thompson et al. (I read the whole piece
on
> the True Origins web site) express a fury that far exceeds what the fault,
> if it be so, calls for, especially from one that professes his Christian
> faith so openly. It strikes me--if I may dare to judge, but then H. is
> being judged--that R waves the word "Christian" against his opponents as
if
> it were a club, and that the tone and language of his accusations, etc.,
> reflect more Gal. 5:20 than 22. (There are other exhortations in Paul's
> letters and the pastorals that would fit this occasion. A friend of mine,
a
> Baptist minister who teaches courses in Old and New Testament at
Appalachian
> State Unversity, here in Boone, NC, where I live, cites some of them when
he
> has occasion to say to his fundamentalist students that they have a right
to
> be fundamentalists but not to be mean-spirited.) We know that it is
> possible to engage in spirited disagreement, and even call attention to
> errors by others, without coming on like Jesse Ventura in his wrestling
> days. I think H. went beyond indignation.
>
> In looking over H's posting on True Origins I see that he has issued a
> retraction that appears to be a response to something Glenn Morton wrote
> him(?). I wish he would pull the whole piece and rewrite it in a way that
> is more worthy of his Christian commitment.
>
> I probably haven't said anything you yourself have concluded, but
> perhaps you might welcome this confirmation.
>
> Bob Schneider, ASA Associate Member
> rjschn39@bellsouth.net
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jonathan Clarke" <jdac@alphalink.com.au>
> To: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 1:08 AM
> Subject: Russ Humphreys
>
>
> > Hi all
> >
> > I started this discussion on acg-1 which I run from my work computer but
> > as it is the weekend and I won't be at it until Monday I will continue
> > it here.
> >
> > I asked for some information about an attack (and a nasty one at that)
> > by Russell Humphreys on Tim Thompson, Steve Schimmrich and Glenn Morton
> > that is on the True.Origin Archive. In particular i was after the
> > background information especially the criticism of Steve (who may still
> > lurk here) of Humphreys and any response by Steve. The material I got
> > was to another unpleasant discussion with John Woodmorappe, which was
> > not it.
> >
> > Sorry to have to drag this unplesantness up, but i need it for a
> > discussion with someone at church, who has given me RH's attack.
> >
> > Part of it says:
> >
> > "An anticreationist named Tim Thompson read one of my ICR Impact papers
> > on the earth's magnetic field and looked up one of my references, a
> > six-page section in a well-known magnetism textbook. Thompson saw a
> > figure near the beginning of that section which roughly resembled a
> > mirror image of my Impact article figures.
> >
> > Thompson immediately jumped to a wrong conclusion; he thought I had
> > either stupidly or dishonestly reversed the time axis of the text's
> > figure to get my figure, and he hastily rushed to judgement upon me in
> > his website. If he had bothered to look up some of my other, more
> > technical references, he would have seen that I used data from a
> > different part of the section in the textbook. The technical references
> > are harder to get, but they spell out exactly how I made my figure. A
> > critic is morally obligated to look up all references before rushing to
> > accuse. At the very least, Thompson might have asked me about it first.
> > He did not follow any of those normal procedures of good scholarship. As
> > far as I know, he still hasn't, despite my informing him of the above.
> > He justly deserves any embarrassment he may get from this incident.
> >
> > The response of other anticreationists to Thompson's piece of poor
> > scholarship is instructive. Glen
> > Morton, a former young-earth creationist, immediately believed Thompson.
> > Without checking with
> > me --- or the copies of my technical papers he has in his possession ---
> > he immediately began
> > spreading his "good news" around the darker corners of the Internet. I
> > corresponded privately
> > with him after my response to Thompson was posted. Although Morton says
> > he is still a Christian,
> > he apparently feels no obligation to retract his inaccurate information.
> >
> > Then an assistant professor of geology named Steve Schimmrich at Calvin
> > College grabbed the
> > ball and began to run with it. He posted a caustic note in various
> > places, including the Calvin
> > college net, accusing me and creationists in general of being dishonest.
> > Calvin college (in Grand
> > Rapids, Michigan) has been a center of anticreationism for several
> > decades, being the home
> > territory of such worthies as Howard Van Til, Davis A. Young, and
> > Clarence Menninga. Though
> > still nominally a Christian college, many of its faculty seem to have
> > slid very far down and away
> > from its original principles. However, I decided to give Dr. Schimmrich
> > the benefit of the doubt. I
> > sent him the following e-mail privately, asking him to retract his piece
> > of misinformation. As an
> > experiment, I appealed to Christian ethics.
> >
> > His response? He ignored my request and challenged me to debate him on
> > other technical issues.
> > He showed not a shred of shame about relaying bad scholarship and
> > wrongly accusing creationists
> > of dishonesty. I wrote back that I was not at all interested in debating
> > him, because I was so
> > disgusted with his hypocrisy that I didn't want anything more to do with
> > him."
> >
> > Any light anyone on the squalid piece of near vilification and slander?
> > Feel free to respond privately.
> >
> > Jon
> >
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 22 2002 - 10:59:48 EST