tgamble

As you probably know, NAG has an article by Dr. Alex Ritchie that basically says that Dr. Andrew Snelling is pretending to be a real geologist and a cretinist at the same time.
<a href="http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/realsnelling.htm" target="_blank">http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/realsnelling.htm</a>

Dr.Snelling and AIG made a response:

"This is an old chestnut, first promulgated by Plimer’s fellow atheist, Alex Ritchie (The Skeptic [Australia] 11(4):12–15, Summer 1991). Ritchie is another fanatical anti-creationist who’s more interested in creationist-bashing than promoting real science, as shown by his admission to Warwick Armstrong (AiG Sydney) that Dr Snelling’s paper was ‘a very good piece of work’. Dr Don Batten refuted this silly charge of ‘duplicity’against Dr Snelling long ago:

‘In the context of reviewing the work of others in a secular publication on the Koongarra uranium deposits, Dr Andrew Snelling used the geological term mya (millions of years ago) in describing the ages of various formations. ‘For his paper, Dr Snelling was asked by the mining corporation for which he consults part-time to review all the published information on Koongarra, summarising the work of other people. These people assumed the conventional belief in millions of years in their writings, so reviewing them necessitated stating their beliefs.

It is understandable that someone unaware of Dr Snelling’s own beliefs could think that it was his opinion that certain rocks were millions of years old.

However, any caveats inserted by Dr Snelling to distance himself from these beliefs would certainly have been deleted by the editors, who, along with his part-time employers, are fully aware of his creationist position. ‘Ritchie, as well as his parrot, the atheist Ian Plimer, imply that Dr Snelling tried to conceal his creationist views from secular geologists. However, Dr Snelling has been upfront with his views and has more than once vigorously defended his creationist position in the most open secular geology forum possible, in the newsletter of Australian geological community, The Australian Geologist (The Australian Geologist 68:16–21, 20/9/1988, pp. and 71:18, 30/6/1989)."

Snelling answers Alex Ritchie

I have never hidden my allegiances or beliefs. For example, when I left the employment of mining companies in 1983 I made it perfectly clear where I was going, what I believed and what I was doing. I also told other research scientists that I was working with, and even offered to be a silent partner in the research work if my involvement embarrassed them or compromised them in any way. None of them in any way backed off, respecting me and the position I'd taken even if they didn't agree.

When I came to write the paper on the Koongarra uranium deposit, it was at the request of the mining company who knew exactly where I stood. The paper was for a book on Australian ore deposits with an editor who had strict guidelines as to how the papers should be written. When I wrote the paper I had no option but to take the standard conventional terminology, and what all the critics have overlooked is that I fully reference all the comments that they are slamming me with. In other words, as far as I was concerned I was making it perfectly clear that this is what everyone else believes, and what is the standard wisdom about this ore deposit and its geological setting. It so happens that the editor of the volume when he did the work was still in the employ of one of the mining companies that I had worked for that knew my position, so nothing was hidden from the public in any way.

The problem is that these hard-line evolutionists are so blinkered that they can't see how a person like myself in such a situation is forced to use their evolutionary terminology whether we like it or not. In other words, even though I could have appealed to the editor of the monograph it would have been to no avail, because the reviewers would have also insisted on the conventional terminology, particularly as one of the reviewers was one of the researchers having done the standard work on the regional geology of that area. It is ludicrous to suggest any hypocrisy or two-facedness. Besides, if you look at some of my papers in the creationist literature, and those of other creationist geologists such as Steve Austin and Kurt Wise, you will notice that we still use the same labels for the rock units as the evolutionists, not by way of compromise, but so everyone knows that we are talking about the same rock units, except we make it clear that we don't agree with the millions of years associated with them. In other words, even in the creationist literature we use the same terminology, though stripped on its conventionaal evolutionary/uniformitaria interpretation."

Several thoughts leap to mind. why would a mineing company knowing about snellings antiscience views hire him or work with him in anyway? Why does Snelling references other papers of his own that also go with standard (accurate) geology? etc.

ex-robot

I really don't see any controversy. I just checked out Snelling's fuull vitae below:

<a href="http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/snelling.html" target="_blank">Snelling Vitae</a>

Summary can be found here:

<a href="http://www.icr.org/creationscientists.html" target="_blank">Snelling Summary</a>

The mining company obviously recognizes Snelling as a competent geologist and isn't holding his views on the flood and flood deposits against him.

xr


{In an effort to save bandwidth, plese don't quote the entire post if it's not necessary. Thanks! -- theyeti}

[ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: ex-robot ]

[ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: ex-robot ]

[ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: theyeti ]</p>

ex-robot

Dohhh! Sorry about that. I'll remember.

Tgamble, where did you get the info on AIG and Snelling's response? I couldn't find it be searching at AIG for some reason. Are we allowed to post that much? It looks like the full article. Just asking. Thanks

xr

theyeti

Typically it depends on two things: a) is it copyrighted and b) how long is it?

In the case of a), we don't have much choice. Posting copyrighted material is against the forum rules and is illegal. The exceptions are 1) you have written permission from the author or 2) the copyright notice specifically states that it may be reproduced with attribution, etc.

As for b), you're expected to use your judgement. Long articles are not only a waste of bandwidth, they also won't get read by anyone. You should just provide a link instead. (And if you don't, the mods and admins will do this for you.) Of course, if you're commenting on a specific segment of an article, it's perfectly appropriate to quote that segment. Short articles of only a few paragraphs are probably okay.

theyeti

lpetrich

I find it curious that Snelling has not adopted the Gossian view that the Universe was created with the appearance of great age. He could have stated that he believes that the Universe was only 6000 years old, and that he was discussing only the apparent ages of the rocks.

Philip Gosse was the author of Omphalos, published in 1857; this encyclopedic tome discussed legions of phenomena that suggest that the Earth has a long history, which he explained by claiming that it was only logical for God to create the rocks with such features. The books' title is the Greek word for "navel", and he considered the old conundrum of whether or not Adam and Eve had had navels, despite not being born in the usual way.

It might be amusing to imagine an Omphalos II, discussing the legions of evidence discovered since 1857:

• Sediment layers with yearly features (varves)
• Tree-ring dating (dendrochronology)
• Radioisotope dating
• Continental drift
• The distances of distant celestial objects

However, to many people, the Gosse hypothesis seems like divine fraudulence, so I doubt that it would be worth the trouble.

[ January 07, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

tgamble

It was quoted on another board by a creationist. you can find it at <a href="http://www.tv.cbc.ca" target="_blank">www.tv.cbc.ca</a> (click message boards. The forum is "creation science")

ex-robot

Cool. Thanks

tgamble

If you're planning to post there you should know that.

1) you can't post posts with URLs without having them checked by the moderator. This means they won't show up right away. If at all.

2) There's a swear filter. So watch your fucking mouth. :=)

3) No HTML code will work. It's different from these forums.

It should work but it doesn't. You can do some basic formatting like indenting. with a &gt; in front of the paragraph you want indented.