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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Honesty
Message-ID: <4565@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-Jan-85 09:15:45 EST
Article-I.D.: cbscc.4565
Posted: Thu Jan 10 09:15:45 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Jan-85 01:34:27 EST
References: <968@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus
Lines: 44

Bill Jefferys has expounded well on the honesty that ought to 
characterize science.  That standard of honesty ought to be
striven for by creationists as well as evolutionists.  I think,
however, that it is a bit unfair to characterise creationists
exclusively as having grave problems in this area.  The problem
of dishonesty, fraud and deceit is at a very unacceptable level
in all of science--as William Broad and Nicholas Wade have pointed
out in their recent book "Betrayers of the Truth".

Creationist err and dishonesty is trumpeted for all the world to
see by evolutionists whose aspiration to honesty and objectivity
often seems to be matched by a basic disdain for a contradicting
cosmology with differing implications.  I think there are many
evolutionists who just don't want creationism to be seen as having
the least degree of plausibility and I think the reasons often go
to a deeper, personal level than just a concern for scientific
integrity in itself.

As Broad and Wade have shown, the errs of *accepted* science easily
go unnoticed for long periods of time.  The point I want to make
here is that the careful scrutiny applied to creationist claims by
scientists does not internally characterize science as a whole.
I believe creationism is treated with special scrutiny because of
an inherent philosophical bias against it.  Such extravigant effort
seems a bit out of place in the relatively inconsequential area
of origins, when falsification of data in, say, cancer research can
cost many lives with treatments that don't work.  Worse than the
deceit itself is the fact the the review system is inadaquate and
allows such fraud to go undetected for long periods of time and
when it is found, knowledge of it is actively suppressed to avoid
betraying the trust of the public (yes, such considerations do enter
in).

It is fine to point out the errors of creationism.  Creationists 
should be all the better for it.  But by doing so the opponents
of creationism should not give the impression that their own back
yard is clean.


By the way... I am Paul Dubuc.  Please don't attribute these statments
to Paul Dubois.  He's got enough to handle already.
-- 

Paul Dubuc	cbscc!pmd