# Christians: Why are scientists more likely to be non-believers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 1, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322 "2013-07-01T06:22:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 29
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/561 "2013-07-17T00:13:11Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > The fossils would be sorted based on their density and mass (hydrological sorting). Since the flood lasted over a year, there was plenty of time and tide changes for several layers. No, they wouldn’t They would have all died in a day or so, and all sunk to bottom at nearly the same time. There would be one big layer of dead things, and then all the silt and rocks. While there might be some stuff mixed in, the majority of it would be dead animals. We would only see multiple layers if these things died in at multiple times over a long period of time. Which is exactly what we see. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/562 "2013-07-17T00:37:29Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > It was just an example of an extremely influential scientist who was a creationist (also a Christian). > > Here are some more: > > [Bios | Answers in Genesis](http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/) Duh. Before Darwin nearly everyone was a creationist because no one knew how man could have appeared otherwise. I also mentioned how older scientists mentioned God in their work. Note how the number of biologists on your list drops significantly after Darwin. The AIG people are too stupid and/or dishonest to note that being a scientist does not offer special authority in fields of which they know nothing. Using Riemann as an authority is a real knee slapper. Mendel btw was a monk. And for the most part people well established by the time the Origin came out are more likely to not accept the new and radical theory. There has been quite a lot more evidence of evolution since then. I remember a list of current “scientists” who were creationists, which also ran very strongly to unqualified people. IIRC someone came out with a list of biologist named Paul or something who accept evolution which was much longer. No one has a problem with ancients, born before we found out this stuff, getting it wrong. Getting it wrong now is another matter entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/563 "2013-07-17T00:44:48Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > That was a citation of a meteor impact and crater, not a mountain. Regardless, the assumed rate of upward lift for mountains via tectonic shift is available to you, please correct me if that estimate was wrong. Here is some more info i just found: > ['Junk' DNA, asteroid impacts and supernovas](http://creation.com/junk-dna-asteroid-impacts-and-supernovas) > Asteroid impacts The Himalayas are still growing today as India continues to crash into Asia. I live very near the Hayward fault. They dug a hole in a park which let people go down and see the fault directly. In fact a block of concrete in the parking lot is split, since the fault goes through the middle of it. Even more spectacular is a park north of San Francisco with a fence which got separated by fifteen feet during the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. All this stuff is happening today without the hand of god being necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/564 "2013-07-17T00:49:00Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > This was in reference to a global flood that would leave billions of fossils. My original point was that a globally catastrophic meteor impact would not leave fossils. However, that was an interesting cite, fwiw. Not at the point of impact, that is for sure. But the impact would have stirred up lots of dust and debris which could have fallen on animals and buried them, just as people were buried in Pompey. The clue to the impact was sediment at the KT boundary. I heard Luis Alvarez talk about this at Princeton before they found the crater. It is very convincing. Whether the impact really killed off the dinosaurs is a bit open, but that it happened isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/565 "2013-07-17T00:51:55Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > The fossils would be sorted based on their density and mass (hydrological sorting). Since the flood lasted over a year, there was plenty of time and tide changes for several layers. So, lighter animals should be on top. How do you explain trilobites being below dinosaurs then? In fact the ordering corresponds to evolutionary history, not density. Very few things fossilize, and animals buried by flash floods are going to be more likely to, so we have plenty of cases of fossil fields from local flash flooding. It is just not global. BTW, I don’t think the Egyptians had a flood legend - but they knew all about flooding. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/566 "2013-07-17T01:29:17Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > BTW, I don’t think the Egyptians had a flood legend - but they knew all about flooding. [first hit on google for Egyptian flood legend](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html#Egypt) > [@](#): > > People have become rebellious. Atum said he will destroy all he made and return the earth to the Primordial Water which was its original state. Atum will remain, in the form of a serpent, with Osiris. [[Faulkner](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html#Faulkner), plate 30] (Unfortunately the version of the papyrus with the flood story is damaged and unclear. See also [Budge](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html#Budge), p. ccii.) hot links are to same page. [Also mentioned here](http://discoverkamit.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/did-ancient-egypt-have-a-flood-myth/) [edit: the Egyptian origin story is pretty cool and conceptually similar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_creation_myths) ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/567 "2013-07-17T03:52:01Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > All this stuff is happening today without the hand of god being necessary. Ahhh…but the faithful see the Hand of God in _everything_. Earthquake? Flood? Nuclear War? Proof that God loves us! ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/568 "2013-07-17T04:42:22Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I copied your answer from within the quote tags for you. > You probably heard about the scientific method from the same place you heard that there is a lack of evidence of evolution. No, experiments are more than just collecting facts. > The logic is more or less this (and I read of this experiment about 45 years ago, so the details aren’t going to be perfect.) > Assume: maggots come from meat spontaneously. > Test by: Putting meat under glass. (I assume there was a control with meat out in the open.) If the assumption is correct, maggots will appear from the meat both under the glass and out in the open. > > Results: Maggots on the meat out in the open, but none under the glass. > Conclusion: the assumption is falsified, and we can conclude that maggots do not arise spontaneously from the meat. > I can think of lots of variations, like sterilizing the meat to avoid eggs being present. > Clearly before them everyone saw with their eyes that maggots appeared on meat. The difference is the experiment. There are plenty of observations we can’t make with just our eyes, but this isn’t one of them. > > As for magic, supernatural gods are the very definition of magic. We have lots of hypotheses about the origin of life that requires nothing supernatural. > Speaking of magic, I can imagine someone saying that God placed the maggots in the meat, and that their lack in the glass proves nothing, since God may just decide not to place them there in this case for his own unknowable reasons. That’s exactly why religious thinking is worthless in science. “Probably”? You assume a lot. According to Benny Hill and Dear Abby, when you assume, you make an “ass” of “u” and “me.” I read a book titled _Science Is a Sacred Cow,_ by Anthony Standen, himself a scientist. He devoted an entire chapter to the scientific method. And that doesn’t count the passing acquaintance (the best term I could muster here) for the method when I took science in high school, and college. Plus the definition in my dictionary _(Random House Webster’s College Dictionary,_ 1992 edition): “a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.” The dictionary’s etymology traces the term back to about 1850. This was 100 years before Standen published his book. Your last paragraph is the quintessence of impudence. I still make a distinction between your concept of “magic” and any divine miracle, like it or lump it. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/569 "2013-07-17T06:18:11Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > From the mention of the ‘fountains of the deep’, we know there was tectonic activity. No we don’t. The local bronze-age world view was that the earth was a surface with a dome. All surrounded by water. The flood happened by Yaweh opening hatches in the dome, so the waters above would pour through it. The fountains in the deep were opened so the water from beneath could come up. That is in no way a description of tectonic movement. We know of tectonic movement by studying our surroundings, not by studying the bible. > [@](#): > > The Himalayas, Alps, Rockies, Appalachians, Andes, etc all are composed of ocean-bottom sediments, full of the aforementioned marine fossils. The Indian subcontinent collided with Asia, turning the huge amounts of sediment into mountains. No they’re not totally composed of ocean-sediment. Some\* layers \*are. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/570 "2013-07-17T06:30:22Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > Again, why bother? You said that your book was full of accurate prophecies, with no inaccurate ones. And yet, you’ve been shown very inaccurate prophesies, and you’re talking about how the apocalyptic ones can’t be refuted. This means they aren’t accurate. For the third time, you’ve cited an endtimes prophecy, claiming it is inaccurate. MT 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: Let me know what year this all happened please. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/571 "2013-07-17T06:32:33Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > A bigger problem is why you find no hominid fossils in the Cambrian strata. If there was a global flood, why aren’t all the fossils essentially jumbled up together? > > Also since you didn’t respond to my last post, I’m assuming that this is a concession that the Bible isn’t inerrant and my criticisms have merit. I can now move onto the next batch of problems? > > Or are you adamant that the moon generates its own light and plants can live in, essentially, the vacuum of space? Cite please, Cambrian strata where? Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. This includes the earth, not implying plants in space. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/572 "2013-07-17T06:35:26Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > I did? You wanna point out where? I gave you a quote from Jesus, who said that all the stuff he was talking about would come to pass within a generation, and he was obviously wrong. This isn’t about end time, it’s about 2000 years ago. MT 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Not seeing the reference to a single generation, please cite that. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/573 "2013-07-17T06:36:30Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > No, they wouldn’t They would have all died in a day or so, and all sunk to bottom at nearly the same time. There would be one big layer of dead things, and then all the silt and rocks. While there might be some stuff mixed in, the majority of it would be dead animals. We would only see multiple layers if these things died in at multiple times over a long period of time. Which is exactly what we see. Sorry, but i could tread water for a day if my life depended on it, and there are better swimmers than me. You are forgetting flying creatures too. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/574 "2013-07-17T06:39:50Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The Himalayas are still growing today as India continues to crash into Asia. > I live very near the Hayward fault. They dug a hole in a park which let people go down and see the fault directly. In fact a block of concrete in the parking lot is split, since the fault goes through the middle of it. Even more spectacular is a park north of San Francisco with a fence which got separated by fifteen feet during the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. > All this stuff is happening today without the hand of god being necessary. I am not denying any tectonic shift. Please see the hydroplate theory. > **[Hydroplate theory](https://creation.com/hydroplate-theory)** > > Walt Brown's Hydroplate theory is wide ranging but lacks much in-depth analysis, has implausible initial conditions, and data is often arbitrarily fitted to the model. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/575 "2013-07-17T06:41:17Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Not at the point of impact, that is for sure. But the impact would have stirred up lots of dust and debris which could have fallen on animals and buried them, just as people were buried in Pompey. The clue to the impact was sediment at the KT boundary. > I heard Luis Alvarez talk about this at Princeton before they found the crater. It is very convincing. Whether the impact really killed off the dinosaurs is a bit open, but that it happened isn’t. If you could cite where dust created conditions to preserve fossils, that would be great, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/576 "2013-07-17T06:44:42Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > So, lighter animals should be on top. How do you explain trilobites being below dinosaurs then? In fact the ordering corresponds to evolutionary history, not density. > > Very few things fossilize, and animals buried by flash floods are going to be more likely to, so we have plenty of cases of fossil fields from local flash flooding. It is just not global. > > BTW, I don’t think the Egyptians had a flood legend - but they knew all about flooding. > **[j14\_1\_110-116.pdf](https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p027/c02766/j14_1_110-116.pdf)** > > 960.46 KB This is a little off topic, but maybe you can cite some intermediate or previous trilobites with simple eyes. Or you can admit that the trilobite eye was extremely complex to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/577 "2013-07-17T06:47:30Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > No we don’t. > The local bronze-age world view was that the earth was a surface with a dome. All surrounded by water. > The flood happened by Yaweh opening hatches in the dome, so the waters above would pour through it. The fountains in the deep were opened so the water from beneath could come up. > That is in no way a description of tectonic movement. > > We know of tectonic movement by studying our surroundings, not by studying the bible. > > No they’re not totally composed of ocean-sediment. Some\* layers \*are. The water came from below, not above… The firmament dividing the heavens in Genesis 1 is not the earth’s crust. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/578 "2013-07-17T07:23:20Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > “Probably”? You assume a lot. According to Benny Hill and Dear Abby, when you assume, you make an “ass” of “u” and “me.” > I read a book titled _Science Is a Sacred Cow,_ by Anthony Standen, himself a scientist. He devoted an entire chapter to the scientific method. And that doesn’t count the passing acquaintance (the best term I could muster here) for the method when I took science in high school, and college. Plus the definition in my dictionary _(Random House Webster’s College Dictionary,_ 1992 edition): “a method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.” The dictionary’s etymology traces the term back to about 1850. This was 100 years before Standen published his book. > Your last paragraph is the quintessence of impudence. I still make a distinction between your concept of “magic” and any divine miracle, like it or lump it. The definition of scientific method you mention is pretty much exactly what I wrote about the experiment. My familiarity with this stuff is a bit more than a college class - more like dozens of papers, hundreds of reviews, and a bit of journal editing. Now how science really works is a lot more complicated than you learn for a science 101 class or a dictionary definition, but the point remains that Pasteur;s hypothesis had nothing to do with the early earth. Plus, an experiment which does not offer the possibility of falsifying the hypothesis is totally useless. If you don’t see that, I can explain it. As for magic, God saying let there be light and light poofing into existence sounds like magic to me. Your special pleading is that it’s different when goddidit - it ain’t. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/579 "2013-07-17T07:32:56Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > I am not denying any tectonic shift. Please see the hydroplate theory. > > [http://creation.com/hydroplate-theory](http://creation.com/hydroplate-theory) I skimmed pages and pages looking for anything clear. I finally got to the claim of isostasy - which I actually know about, having done a paper on it in junior high, before plate tectonics was accepted. I didn’t see a lot of data backing it up - just some pictures. He clearly doesn’t accept any kind of dating, so the vastly different ages of different mountain chains probably won’t be considered. The point is that we see all the things needed for mountain building today, without the need of any miracles or very rapid movement of the continents, which it seems these so called theories explain. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322/580 "2013-07-17T07:41:52Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > [http://aufiles.creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j14\_1/j14\_1\_110-116.pdf](http://aufiles.creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j14_1/j14_1_110-116.pdf) > > This is a little off topic, but maybe you can cite some intermediate or previous trilobites with simple eyes. Or you can admit that the trilobite eye was extremely complex to begin with. Why not? They evolved for millions or tens of millions of years also. Why shouldn’t their eyes be complex? As for your cite, it is the typical appeal to additional discoveries to prove science is wrong. He says that dinosaurs being above trilobites doesn’t mean that they are separated in time, but he never explains why we don’t see trilobites on top of dinosaurs. So, not very convincing. A geologist could surely do a better job of explaining why he is full of it. Again, I’m sure he doubts the results of radioactive dating which confirm the great distance in time between these layers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322.md?page=28) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-why-are-scientists-more-likely-to-be-non-believers/662322.md?page=30)