acroyear | The New Creationist Strategy... (Reply)

uncle_possum: Well, not plain and simple. These folks, as a group, are used to the idea of "proof texts" from the Bible--where as long as you can find a verse to quote, your statement must be true.

Which may explain the story behind a recent paper submitted to Proteomics: the paper had an unusual abstract and title, "Mitochondria, the missing link between body and soul: Proteomic prospective evidence", but was mostly sound writing on the subject except when these little metaphysical one-liners shot out, catching PZ's attention:

Pharyngula: A baffling failure of peer review: [emph PZ's]

Proteomics data greatly assist this realistic assumption that connects all kinds of life. More logically, the points that show proteomics overlapping between different forms of life are more likely to be interpreted as a reflection of a single common fingerprint initiated by a mighty creator than relying on a single cell that is, in a doubtful way, surprisingly originating all other kinds of life.

There were subsequent creationist-hinting non-sequiturs, utterly unsupported by further argument within the paper, throughout the main body which the peer review people seemed to totally miss.

Subsequent findings (gotta love google) showed that a very significant amount of the legitimate-sounding work was actually plagiarized. The paper has since been retracted, but only on the plagiarism grounds. The editors won't comment on the creationist hints that should have spoken volumes about the authors' intents.

So is this a new strategy? Knowing your target audience, begging for the stature and authority that comes with the label "peer-review" (since it alone can be the key to getting your crap theology to be called "science" and put into the school system against the Constitution), you will submit perfectly legitimate papers with hidden catch-phrases in them, literally planting your own quote-mines in order to pull them out later and brandish them to the world going "See! Creationism is Science! It's in a peer-reviewed paper!"

As with all other creationist strategies, this is yet another direct reaction to a court case, specifically Kitzmiller, where the judge cited in his findings that peer-review is an important element of what makes something science.

Once again, whatever happened to personal choice of integrity, which is core to what Jesus AND Paul (and for that matter, Solomon and David) were on about?

Why must these American "Christians" defend the alleged moral authority of their religion by breaking every rule they claim it has?

I had a feeling some people were skeptical or thought I was being too cynical when I said in my 25 that I could find something like this every single day (and that's without subscribing to