Dr. Danny R. Faulkner is a drooling, brain dead cretin who somehow managed to con his way into a teaching position at USC Lancaster. And in spite of his mental handicap, also published dozens of papers in respected scientific journals--papers with impressive sounding names like "Photoelectric Observations and Epochs of Minimum Light, Southwest Lacertae," published by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
Now, why would I say he has the mental capacity of mold? Well, he's a New Earth Creationist. He actually believes the universe and everything in it is about 6,000 years old. Yes, you heard right--a man with a PhD in astronomy who also happens to be a biblical literalist, and who believes there is evidence supporting the 6,000 year deadline derived from scripture. In fact, he's written a book about it, called "Universe by Design."
But wait a minute: they don't just hand out PhDs like candy. They don't give professorships to complete nincompoops. The Astronomical Society doesn't publish insane rants from gibbering idiots. The only other option is that Dr. Danny R. Faulkner is NOT an incompetent boob; that he's NOT a doddering fool; that he's actually an intelligent fellow with well thought out ideas and hard evidence to support them. If he has published papers in respected scientific journals, his book about creationism must meet the same high standards and use the same methodology as his mainstream scientific work.
So, all you New Earth Creationism doubters, what do you have to say for yourselves? How do you reconcile the fact that a well respected man of science, an intelligent and competent professor of Astronomy, can also be a New Earth Creationist? How can you dismiss his book when his other work has met the high standards of mainstream scientific journals?
To this, Dr. P responds,
And I, too, can see where he's going with this. But if he thinks that the fact that an apparently highly educated and professionally competent person can hold an unusual and seemingly incorrect position somehow proves that all unusual positions held by apparently highly educated and professionally competent persons can be dismissed, on that basis, as incorrect, he needs a course in elementary logic.
I suppose P's elementary course in logic would entail something on hasty generalizations. The irony of course, is that MC is in no way arguing for what Prof. P claims. He is, in fact, demonstrating it is the apologists who need to learn something about hasty generalizations. We can re-word P's response to demonstrate clearly it is in fact P himself who is guilty of that which he wrongly accuses MC of, MC could have rightly said:
And I, too, can see where he's going with this. But if he thinks that the fact that an apparently highly educated and professionally competent person can hold an unusual and seemingly incorrect position somehow proves that unusual positions held by apparently highly educated and professionally competent persons should be taken every bit as seriously as perviously successful work by highly educated and professionally competent persons, on that basis alone, he is incorrect, he needs a course in elementary logic.