Batshit crazy molecular geneticist shill for AiG

[Doomed Harlottt]

This video is long (about 24 minutes) but worthwhile for anyone who is interested in science and fundies:

(If the link doesn't work, go onto youtube and search for "Georgia Purdom Michael Shermer.")

Michael Shermer is interviewing Dr. Georgia Purdom, a "research scientist" at Answers in Genesis ("AiG"), the organization behind the notorious Creation Museum. What's fascinating is that this woman actually has a legitimate Ph.D in molecular genetics from Ohio State University! Is it possible that she actually believes the AiG party line that Genesis is literally true, that the world was created in 6 days 6000 years ago, that speciation does not exist, etc. etc.? Yes, indeed! In this clip, she describes in detail how she willfully embraces ignorance.

Some of the hightlights (along with my analysis):

-- She claims she is researching, through a Creationist lens, the question of how bacteria become pathogenic. It is not clear exactly what studies or tests she is performing, but she says that she assumes as a starting point that bacteria were not pathogenic before the Fall. At that point, according to Genesis, everything was perfect, that is until Man sinned and caused God to remove some of his "sustaining power" which had previously prevented death and disease. I am fascinated by this and would like to learn more about what she is doing here. Is she possibly performing legitimate science regarding the development of pathogenicity and then just plugging it into her creation story about how disease came about as a result of sin? Also, I wonder why bacteria would have existed at all before the Fall? What purpose did they serve in God's great plan? (Perhaps as a later mechanism of disease since God knew all along that Adam and Eve would sin?)

--She spouts the AiG party line that both regular scientists and creation scientists start with "presuppositions." In her case, she admits she is starting off with the "presupposition" that Genesis is literally true and she is interpreting everything she sees in science in that light. But she claims that scientists also have "presuppositions." It is a little unclear to me what presuppositions scientists supposedly have. I see two possibilities as to what she may be arguing: (1) She may be claiming that scientists are starting with the "presupposition" that we can learn about the natural world by empirical observation and testing. If so, then she is dead right because that is what science IS. But what she is doing, by uncritically accepting the Genesis account, is NOT science. It doesn't matter what her Ph.D is in because what she is doing is not science. (2) She may be claiming that scientists are starting with the "presupposition" that the earth is 4.6 billion years old, that life first started to evolve 3.5 billion years ago, etc. But again, it is unfair to equate the acceptance of previous scientific discoveries based on evidence and testing with the uncritical acceptance of Genesis. One is science and the other is not science.

-- The mind boggling part comes when Shermer asks her if she plans, in her position as a "research scientist" for AiG, to perform any tests or studies to confirm that the earth is 6000 years old, or that humans were created in one fell swoop on God's say so. She looks at him like he is an idiot and says that no, there is no reason to perform any such tests or studies, because they already KNOW what happened based on Genesis. Again, I don't care if she won the Nobel Prize in biology, what she is talking about here (getting your answers from an ancient text) is not science.

-- Shermer asks the question I always want to ask these people: So what happened physically when God created life? Her answer: Based on Genesis, he spoke us into life. God's word poofed us into existence. She seems to have absolutely no intellectual curiosity whatsoever as to the physical process involved. Some scientist!

-- Shermer asks the other burning question - how the eff she managed to get a Ph.D in molecular genetics without accepting the theory of evolution? Purdom claims that evolution was irrelevant to her studies. It appears that she accepts the concept that natural selection can causes changes among populations, but that somehow it stops before it causes speciation. In other words, she accepts "microevolution" but not "macroevolution." So she was apparently able to use evolutionary concepts in studying localized phenomena but blinded herself to the overarching framework of evolution.

-- Purdom flogs the distinction between what she calls "observational" or "here-and-now" science versus historical science. She seems to reject the idea that empirical evidence can tell us anything about the past. In other words, she does not believe that you can know anything about a phenomenon you did not personally observe, such as so-called "macroevolution," or the origin of the universe, except through revelation. But again, revelation is not science. Moreover, she ignores the fact that you can find physical evidence of past events (such as fossils, current populations, geological evidence, astrophysical evidence, and DNA), form a testable falsifiable hypothesis to explain that evidence, and then test your hypothesis. I can't tell if she is being deceitful or willfully ignoring basic science. I also don't understand how her position gels with her claim to be studying how bacteria become pathogenic in light of the non-pathogenic nature of bacteria before the fall. After all, she has claimed that she is not interested in doing tests to confirm the Genesis account because she has already accepted it and she has claimed that it is impossible to scientifically establish what occurred in the past. So what's the point of her "research"?

--Amazingly, Purdom claims that AiG does not "interpret" Scripture. She insists that others have "interprepted" Scripture but that AiG reads it precisely as it is written. She does not allow any room for ambiguity in the Bible, or mistranslation either. She makes the baldfaced claim that Genesis is completely clear and that it is impossible for AiG to be mistaken in their reading of it.

--Others on the internet have boggled at the statement Purdom makes that her 5-year-old daughter is a "guilty, guilty sinner." I am not really terribly surprised by that. It is a perfectly standard and orthodox claim. And she qualifies it by noting that she herself is a guilty sinner, along with everyone else on earth. It is a bit creepy in the context of her answering why God would allow a child to die of cancer, but I guess I am used to hearing religious people on the internet say things like this. I'm desensitized! What makes Purdom so interesting is her take on scientific issues.

It's a crazy world, I tell ya.

[Constance Vigilance]

Spoiler: if you believe things in the face of all available, peer-reviewed evidence which you are completely unable to support with counter-evidence, and are unwilling to change your beliefs when the evidence changes, then what you are doing is. not. science and you are. not. a scientist. She's mimicking the process, but with nothing underneath it.

It's like those cargo cults after WW2 -- it's nice that you've built a tower and are waving at the sky because that brought planes before, but without an understanding of the fundamental principles of what the planes were and where they came from, you're going to be disappointed with your results.

ETA link to cargo cult info, because they are well interesting (unlike this woman): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

[doggie]

none more blind then those who are sure they see perfectly.

[emmiedahl]

Funny, I am in the second day of a university level class in cell biology (required for molecular bio majors at every university everywhere) and evolution already has come up. Yesterday. In both lecture and the first ten pages of the book.

[Doomed Harlottt]

You know, I think it is just possible this could be a complete con, and that she knows perfectly well that there is a mountain of evidence to support evolution. I mean, this woman has set herself up in a very cushy job in which everyone fawns over her Ph.D but no one expect her to ask any difficult questions, design any experiments, or subject herself to the rigors of peer review.

[Doomed Harlottt]

Of course, I think it is more likely that she genuinely believes in the literal truth of Genesis. What is a con is her passing her faith off as "science."

[emmiedahl]

About Dr. Purdom: She has a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from Ohio State (2000) but I cannot find any peer-reviewed studies to her name, which is odd for a scientist with that degree. She taught for a few years at Mt. Vernon Nazarene University but people speculate that she left because she was denied tenure--apparently she left at six years, which is when that university evaluates for tenure.

Part of me suspects that her beliefs make her unable to participate in modern molecular genetics because evolution (including macroevolution) is essential to the field. And she is probably not such a great teacher if a creationist university did not want her. I can't understand why they would not fight to keep her, after all; creationists with her training are rare, because the field assumes evolution as the science community accepts it, so she is quite a commodity. She is, for some reason, unfit to work in both academia and science the way her peers do.

She must be a great compartmentalizer. The top student in my bio class did not believe in evolution as an origin of species but was very good at memorizing and regurgitating the information. She just felt that the Bible was literally true despite any evidence to the contrary, so nothing placed before her mattered. But there is really no room for Biblical Creation in science. To make a parallel: being a molecular geneticist who believes in Biblical creation is like being a psychologist who believes all mental illness is caused by demon possession.

[Doomed Harlottt]

I was reading everything I could find on Dr. Purdom over the weekend, so I can share the following:

1) She claims (on her blog I believe) that she was not denied tenure from Eastern Nazarene University because they don't have a tenure track. So I don't know that she was necessarily not good enough to cut it there. I think the Nazarenes themselves are creationists.

2) There was a thread on Pharyngula about her in which people looked into it and found that she had never first-authored a paper (except, I assume, her dissertation). So that is indeed a very weak record.

3) She has an absolutely fascinating blog and facebook page which she updates regularly. I love it when she talks about the poor misguided folks who don't see the world the way she does.

Emmiedahl nails it: Being a creationist molecular biologist is EXACTLY like being a psychiatrist who believes in demonic possession. Good one!

[Renting with Raggles]

-- Purdom flogs the distinction between what she calls "observational" or "here-and-now" science versus historical science. She seems to reject the idea that empirical evidence can tell us anything about the past. In other words, she does not believe that you can know anything about a phenomenon you did not personally observe, such as so-called "macroevolution," or the origin of the universe, except through revelation. But again, revelation is not science. Moreover, she ignores the fact that you can find physical evidence of past events (such as fossils, current populations, geological evidence, astrophysical evidence, and DNA), form a testable falsifiable hypothesis to explain that evidence, and then test your hypothesis. I can't tell if she is being deceitful or willfully ignoring basic science.

[crassy]

You know, I think it is just possible this could be a complete con, and that she knows perfectly well that there is a mountain of evidence to support evolution. I mean, this woman has set herself up in a very cushy job in which everyone fawns over her Ph.D but no one expect her to ask any difficult questions, design any experiments, or subject herself to the rigors of peer review.

[doggie]

There are a few others like him as well. Michael Behe is a good example. Despite knowing that just about everyone else in his field disagrees with him and having his department put a disclaimer on his staff profile at LeHigh University, he sticks with the idea of intelligent design (that does not even deserve capitalisation because it is absolutely ridiculous).

[crassy]

This has to screw with your mind.

[doggie]

Even better is his son has come out as an atheist and said that though he loves his dad he thinks him to be really batshit about the whole thing and disagrees completely with his stance.

[Witsec7]

I listened to the whole Youtube. I really should not listen to this kind of shit.

[crassy]

that makes sense it is sad when children follow the batshit crazy of their parents.

If you are interested in the story, he did an IAMA on Reddit a while back.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d ... confidence