Re: Flood Model [was Early Cambrian explosion]

Steven H. Schimmrich (sschimmr@ursa.calvin.edu)
Tue, 09 Feb 1999 16:56:49 -0500

At 03:29 PM 2/9/99 -0800, Art Chadwick wrote:
>
> Look at your last publication, and tell me how much paper you devoted to
> attempting to disprove your thesis. I am sorry, but science doesn't work
> like that, and you ought to know it. We are attempting to present a case
> which has 1000 detractors for every supporter. Why should you expect me to
> do your homework for you. What keeps science advancing is the interactions
> of the community, not the individual scientists, each of which labors under
> some paradigm or other. Every scientist is attempting to advance some
> thesis, not to shoot one of his or her own down. Be realistic, Steve, quit
> grousing and name-calling, and expecting me to do your homework for you!

Not trying to disprove Art, just reporting previous work that may not support
your hypothesis. And you can damn well bet that any paper, thesis, etc. that
doesn't mention previous work (ESPECIALLY IF IT CONTRADICTS YOUR IDEAS) is fair
game for criticism. You KNOW that you can't send a paper out for publication
(except perhaps to the Creation Research Society Quarterly) without at least
acknowledging that others have published papers critical of your ideas!

I stand by my position that any reasonable person can see that you appear dishonest
when you knowingly don't mention anything critical of your idea and then turn around
and tell people that THEY have to do the literature search and look for any critical
papers themselves! Think twice about working like that Art, it will result in people
not believing your work without extensive fact checking. Science operates on trust
and you don't want a reputation as someone who isn't trustworthy. It's also not a
good Christian witness to non-believing geologists.

- Steve.

--   Steven H. Schimmrich, Assistant Professor of Geology   Department of Geology, Geography, and Environmental Studies   Calvin College, 3201 Burton Street SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546   sschimmr@calvin.edu (office), schimmri@earthlink.net (home)   616-957-7053 (voice mail), 616-957-6501 (fax)    http://home.earthlink.net/~schimmrich/