Lists of creationist scientists

The following is a compilation (taken from various lists created by creationists) of lists of creationist scientists; which is to say, scientists who either:
 * 1) Accept Young Earth creationism (YEC) to some degree
 * 2) Accept intelligent design (ID) to some degree. ID advocates usually accept or have no problem with deep time.
 * 3) Reject evolution to some degree

The purpose of lists such as these is the attempt to fallaciously establish Creationism and/or ID as a plausible alternative to evolution, in this case via the arbitrary accumulation of as many fancy titles as possible for their lists, in order to abrasively petition their way into classrooms and universities, regardless of the many scientific obstacles to this.

Which lists?
Said lists include:


 * AIG: Answers in Genesis's Creation Scientists (as of 08 November 2015 ), Modern Creation Scientists (as of 25 November 2015 ), and Scientist Inclusion Procedure (as of 06 September 2015 ). Criteria for inclusion:


 * CMI: Creation Ministries International's list of scientists alive today who accept the biblical account of creation (as of 29 October 2014 ). Criteria for inclusion:


 * DI: Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism (ASDFD) (as of 23 June 2012 ). Criteria for inclusion:


 * ICR: the Institute for Creation Research's Creation Scientists, (as of 02 June 2002 ) Creation Scientists in the Biological Sciences (as of 01 June 2002 ), and Creation Scientists in the Physical Sciences (as of 10 August 2002 ). Criteria for inclusion:

Problems
These lists have numerous problems.

Sowing "controversy"
These lists "manufacture dissent" to explain the absence of scientific debate on creationist and ID claims. Robert Pennock points out:

The Discovery Institute in particular uses its list to promote the idea that evolution is the subject of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community (despite the minuscule percentage of actual scientists that have signed up for it). It has, for instance, been used to support their Teach the Controversy campaigns and their relatives ("Critical Analysis of Evolution", "Free Speech on Evolution", "Stand Up For Science"). DI has claimed "evolution is a theory in crisis" that is disputed widely within the scientific community, citing ASDFD as evidence or a resource, and hence also that this information is being withheld from students in public high school science classes along with "alternatives" to evolution such as ID.

In 2002 Stephen Meyer presented A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism to the Ohio Board of Education to promote Teach the Controversy, citing it as demonstrating the existence of genuine controversy over Darwinian evolution; in the 2005 Kansas evolution hearings he similarly cited the petition in support of there being "significant scientific dissent from Darwinism" that students should be informed about.

Popularity as scientific evidence
Scientific principles are built on publications in peer-reviewed journals, discussion in open forums, and finally consensus. A petition or list of supporters should be considered the last resort of a pseudoscience rather than a legitimate scientific dissent from the current consensus. Instead of saying, "the best publications support my position" or even "most publications support my position", these lists say "some scientists happen to support my position". At best, this is a flawed appeal to authority; at worst, this is essentially an appeal to the minority.

(Lack of) length
Presumably, these lists are meant to be inclusive; if so, then they are miserably inadequate and bely the relatively small size of the pool of creationist scientists. Several facts make this clear:


 * Many scientists are listed by multiple creationist organizations; some are listed by all 4.
 * Many scientists are listed on the same list: the AIG list double-dips 8 times.
 * It's questionable whether some of the people listed actually exist beyond creationist copy-pasting, given that they have left no trace of their scientific (or other) work.
 * Deceased scientists are not consistently removed from the lists (or not removed at all), and not consistently kept track of, something that further contributes to inflating the number of listees.

The roughly 700 signatories who originally signed DI's list would have represented about 0.063% of the estimated 1,108,100 biological and geological scientists in the US in 1999. (The roughly 150 biologists Darwin Dissenters would represent about 0.013% of the US biologists that existed in 1999.) As of 2006, the list was expanded to include non-US scientists. However, the list nonetheless represents less than 0.03% of all research scientists in the world. Despite the increase in the absolute number of scientists willing to sign the dissent form, the figures indicate the support from scientists for creationism and ID is steadily decreasing.

As a tongue-in-cheek response, the National Center for Science Education started "Project Steve", a list of living scientists with the first name "Steve" (or non-English variants of the name) who support evolution, and who gave consent to the use of their name. As of 09 February 2012, the list contained 1187 signatures, of which two-thirds are qualified biologists. The signatories to Project Steve are overall far more consistently active scientists and researchers with real credentials. By comparison, in 2012, A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism had only 12 signatories whose names would have qualified them for the Steve list 2012. The twelve constitute a motley crew that contains two non-scientists (Meyer, Cheesman), certified crackpots (Gift), and one single biologist named C. Steven Murphree, who, to add insult to injury, later repudiated his involvement with DI and signed Project Steve instead.

Most damning of all, the petition , which was spread only by word of mouth and was only open for four days, received 7,733 signatures (as compared to ASDFD's then 400 signatures over four years), out of which a whopping 4,066 of the signatories had PhDs. To make matters worse still for the Creationists, as far as the (admittedly fallacious) strategy of gathering signatures goes:

(Lack of) qualifications
Although one might think that being a biologist or geologist or astronomer is required to prove a recent creation or intelligent design, creationists apparently disagree, as the list includes numerous of the following:


 * mathematicians and statisticians — fields consisting almost entirely of a priori reasoning rather than scientific observation
 * assorted medical professionals, including dentists, veterinarians, and plastic surgeons
 * engineers
 * and even a couple of philosophers.

A large percentage of those signatories who do have a research record is retired.

Three-quarters of the signatories had no academic background in biology. The number of biologists actively researching biological issues even remotely related to evolution can be counted on one hand.

Some of the listed scientists are academics, almost all at evangelical Christian universities.

Even the actual scientists frequently work in fields completely unrelated to the subject at hand. But, but, SCIENCE! In fact, relatively quick searches reveal that a very large percentage of those listed have no academic affiliation at all. Further, many of those listed are currently employed by AIG, CMI, DI, or ICR themselves &mdash; making them less than unbiased.

Misinterpretations
Larry Moran puts it:

When the National Center for Science Education contacted several of the signatories of A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, many of them admitted that they had no problem with common descent or evolution at all; one of them said that his "dissent mainly concerns the origin of life," but the theory of evolution is, of course, not a theory about the origin of life at all (though if the statement is read literally, such concerns would in fact be a reason to assent to it).

However, the language of the statement is misleading. It frames the argument in a way that anyone could agree with it. Anyone who is open to the idea of scientific inquiry would agree that they should be skeptical of﻿ everything, including evolution. Many signatories &mdash; including quite a few who have real, respectable research records &mdash; have explicitly denied that they have any problems with evolution but signed the list for other reasons (e.g. Patricia Reiff, Phillip Savage, Ronald Larson).

Overrepresented or creationist institutions

 * Texas A&M University (28 of those listed either studied or work(ed) at A&M.)
 * Georgia Institute of Technology (16 of those listed either studied or work(ed) at GIT.)
 * Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Mexico (10 of those listed work(ed) at AUG.)
 * Liberty University (9 of those listed either studied or work(ed) at LU.)
 * Oral Roberts University (9 of those listed either studied or work(ed) at ORU.)
 * Bob Jones University (3 of those listed either studied or work(ed) at BJU.)
 * Cedarville University (14 of those listed either studied or work(ed) at CU.)
 * California Baptist University (2 of those listed either studied or work(ed) at CBU.)
 * Institute for Creation Research Graduate School (3 of those listed either studied or work(ed) at ICRGS (now ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics).)

Fields of the table

 * Name: [Last Name], [First Name] [Middle Initial].
 * Lists: Which lists the person is a part of. Includes AIG, CMI, DI, ICR.
 * Broad field: The broad field of science in which the person studied. Includes Anthropology, Biology, Business, Chemistry, Earth Science, Education, Engineering, Forensics, History, Linguistics, Mathematics, Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Theology, and Zoology. Only certain fields are considered qualified to be on the creationists' lists.
 * Education and qualifications: An overview of the person's qualifications, occupation, statements about the issue, etc.
 * Last published: [Year] ([2024 - Year] YA). "YA" means "years ago". If the person published more than 20 YA, then they're not considered qualified to be on the creationists' lists. Creationist publications are not counted, because creationist journals often qualify as pseudojournals.
 * Viewpoint: Whether the person is a young-earth creationist (YEC), intelligent design proponent (ID), evolution supporter, or unknown. If they aren't YEC or ID, they aren't considered qualified to be on the creationists' lists.
 * Qualified? Whether the person is qualified to speak on creationism. To be qualified, a person must have [1] studied Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry (Biochemistry, Organic Chemistry only), Earth Science (Geology, Geophysics only), Medicine (Anatomy, Bacteriology only), or Physics (Astronomy, Geophysics only) to at least the M.S. level, [2] have published in the last 20 years (since 2001), and [3] must actually support creationism and/or intelligent design. When one or more of these fields cannot be verified, the creationist gets the benefit of the doubt and is reported as qualified.

List
Note: A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism is being updated and ported to this page. Not all ASDFD listees are present.

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Related
The Discovery Institute-related organization Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity manages "Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism", a similar list for medical professionals. The institute has also compiled and distributed other misleading lists of local scientists during controversies over evolution education in Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas.