- Duane Gish
-
Duane Gish 
Born Duane Tolbert Gish
December 7, 1921
White City, KansasResidence San Diego, California Nationality American Education B.S. Chemistry, UCLA - 1949; Ph.D. Biochemistry, University of California, Berkley - 1953 Employer Institute for Creation Research (retired) Known for Prominent public speaker on Creationism Religion Baptist Duane Tolbert Gish (born February 17, 1921) is an American biochemist and a prominent member of the creationist movement.[1] Gish is a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and the author of numerous publications on the subject of creation science. Gish has been called "creationism's T.H. Huxley" for the way he "relished the confrontations" of formal debates with prominent evolutionists, usually held on university campuses."[2]
Contents
Biography
Gish, a twin, was born in White City, Kansas, the youngest of nine children. He received a B.S. degree from UCLA in 1949 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1953. He worked as an Assistant Research Associate at Berkeley, and Assistant Professor at Cornell University Medical College performing biomedical and biochemical research for eighteen years, joining the Upjohn Company as a Research Associate in 1960.[3]
A Methodist from age ten, and later a fundamentalist Baptist, Gish has long held that the Biblical creation story is a historical fact.[4] After reading Evolution: Science Falsely So-Called in the late 1950s, Gish became persuaded that science had produced falsifying evidence against biological evolutionary theory, and that various fields of science offered corroborating evidence in support of Biblical creation.[5] He joined the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), an association of Christian scientists, mistakenly assuming the group to be aligned with creationism. Through his affiliation at the ASA, Gish met geneticist and creationist, William J. Tinkle, who in 1961 invited Gish to join his newly formed anti-evolution caucus within the ASA.[4]
In 1971 Gish became a member of the faculty at San Diego Christian College working in their research division, before accepting a position at the Institute for Creation Research (independent since 1981). He is the author of several books and articles espousing the tenets of creationism. His best known work, Evolution: The Fossils Say No!, published in 1978, has been widely accepted by antievolutionists as an authoritative reference for creationist concepts.[3]
Gish initially "assigned low priority to the question of age [of the Earth]".[6] Gish currently holds the position of Senior Vice-President Emeritus at the ICR.
Debates
Gish has been characterized as using a rapid-fire approach during a debate, presenting arguments and changing topics very quickly. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, has dubbed this approach the "Gish Gallop," describing it as "where the creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth torrents of error that the evolutionist hasn't a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate"[7] and criticized Gish for failing to answer objections raised by his opponents.[8]
Gish has also been criticised for using a standardized presentation during debates. While undertaking research for a debate with Gish, Michael Shermer noted that for several debates Gish's opening, assumptions about his opponent, slides and even jokes remained identical. In the debate itself, Shermer has written that while he stated he was not an atheist and willing to accept the existence of a divine creator, Gish's rebuttal concerned itself primarily with proving that Shermer was an atheist and therefore immoral.[9]
Massimo Pigliucci, who has debated Gish five times, said that he ignores evidence contrary to his religious beliefs.[10] Others have accused Gish of stonewalling arguments with fabricated facts or figures.[11]
Publications
- Bonnie Snellenberger; Gish, Duane T.; D Dish; Earl Snellenberger (1990). The Amazing Story of Creation: From Science and the Bible. Green forest, AR: Master Books. ISBN 0-89051-120-9.
- Hillestad, George M.; Morris, Henry; Gish, Duane T. (1974). Creation: acts, facts, impacts. San Diego, Calif: ICR Pub. Co. ISBN 0-89051-020-2.
- D. Gish (1993). Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics. El Cajon, Calif: Institute for Creation Research. ISBN 0-932766-28-5.
- Gish, Duane T. (1988). Creationist Research 1964-1988. Creation Research Society. ISBN 094038406X.
- Gish, Duane T. (1977). Dinosaurs: Those Terrible Lizards. Green forest, AR: Master Books. ISBN 0-89051-039-3.
- Gloria Clanin; Gish, Duane T.; Earl Snellenberger; Bonita Snellenberger (1992). Dinosaurs by Design. Green forest, AR: Master Books. ISBN 0-89051-165-9.
- Gish, Duane T. (1972). Evidence against evolution. Wheaton, Ill: Tyndale House Publishers. ISBN 0-8423-0790-7.
- Gish, Duane T.; (1974). Have You Been... Brainwashed?. Seattle, WA: Life Messengers. pp. 48.
- Gish, Duane T. (1979, 1986). Evolution, the fossils say no!. San Diego, Calif: Creation-Life Publishers. ISBN 0-89051-057-1.
- Gish, Duane T. (1985). Evolution: the challenge of the fossil record. San Diego, Calif: Creation-Life Publishers. ISBN 0-89051-112-8.
- Gish, Duane T. (1981). Manipulating life, where does it stop?: Genetic engineering. Green forest, AR: Master Books. ISBN 0890510717.
- Gish, Duane T.. Speculations and Experiments on the Origins of Life. New Leaf Pr. ISBN 0-89051-010-5.
- Gish, Duane T. (1995). Teaching Creation Science in Public Schools. El Cajon, Calif: Institute for Creation Research. ISBN 0932766366.
- Rohrer, Donald H.; Gish, Duane T. (1978). Up with creation!: ICR acts/facts/impacts, 1976-1977. San Diego, Calif: Creation-Life Publishers. ISBN 0-89051-048-2.
- Gish, Duane T. (1995). Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No!. Master Books. pp. 277. ISBN 0890511128.
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Hayward, James L. (1998). The Creation/Evolution Controversy : an Annotated Bibliography. Scarecrow Press/Salem Press. pp. 253. ISBN 0-8108-3386-7.
- ^ Numbers 2006, p. 316
- ^ a b Smout, Kary D. (1998). The creation/evolution controversy: a battle for cultural power. New York: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-96262-8.
- ^ a b Numbers 2006, p. 251
- ^ "Dr. Duane Gish: Crusader", Creation Matters, Volume 1, Number 1 January/February 1996
- ^ Numbers 2006, p. 260
- ^ Scott, Eugenie (1994-07-07). "Debates and the Globetrotters". Talk Origins Archive. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/debating/globetrotters.html. Retrieved 2007-10-30.
- ^ Scott, Eugenie (November-December 2004). "Confronting Creationism: When and How". National Center for Science Education. http://ncse.com/rncse/24/6/confronting-creationism. Retrieved 2009-01-19.
- ^ Shermer, Michael (1997). Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, And Other Confusions Of Our Time. New York: A.W.H. Freeman/Owl Book. pp. 128–136. ISBN 0-7167-3387-0.
- ^ Pigliucci, Massimo (2002). Denying evolution: creationism, scientism, and the nature of science. Sunderland, Mass: Sinauer Associates. ISBN 0878936599.
- ^ Schadewald, Robert J.. "Six Flood Arguments Creationists Can't Answer". http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/6flood.htm.
References
- Numbers, Ronald L. (2006). The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design (expanded ed.). Harvard. ISBN 9780674023390
Further reading
- Arthur, Joyce (1996). Creationism: Bad Science or Immoral Pseudoscience?. 4, no. 4. USA: Skeptic. http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/gish.html
- Montagu, M. F. Ashley (1984-01-12). Science and Creationism (Kindle ed.). USA: Oxford University Press. ASIN B000QXDJIG
- Nelkin, Dorothy (1986, 2000). The Creation Controversy: Science or Scripture in the Schools. toExcel. ISBN 0595001947
External links
Categories:- 1921 births
- Living people
- Christian creationists
- King James Only movement
- Young Earth creationism
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