Creationist Academics in the UK
By Roger Stanyard, July 2006
I have completed my table on the known number of YECers in British academia.
If the meaning of life is 42, the answer is nine. And only one is convincingly in a position to know what he is talking about. Basically the YECers are talking out of their backsides when they claim that there are a growing number of scientists (for which the academics are a proxy) in the UK accepting their hocus pocus.
Just the opposite – the academics I have looked at here are largely middle-aged or old people who have been pensioned off or are no more than a decade away from retirement. Their numbers have more than halved in the last few years.
I have run through my methodology below before reaching the final conclusions at the end of the article.
General: All known IDers have been excluded from the analysis. The following have not been included in the final list of fundamentalist creationists in British academia because they appear to have retired or left academia: Prof DB Gower, David Rosevear, Jeff Lowe, John Peet, Geoffrey Lewis, Edgar Andrews, David Walton, Terry Hamblin, Monty White and Derek Linkens. That is a total of ten people out of the 27 of the signatories on the 2002 letter to Estelle Morris – over a third of the total. In addition, I have excluded George Marshall of the University of Glasgow because he is only a visiting lecturer there. He was not a signatory.
Other academics that have been claimed to be creationists appear to have left British universities in the last four years. They have either moved abroad or appear to have gone into non-academic careers. These include Nick Fuller, Ian Fuller and Nigel Robinson. Also omitted is Mark Toleman of Bristol University as he has told me he is wavering.
There were also a number of signatories to the 2002 Estelle Morris letter that were not at the time academics (and, as far as I am aware, are still not) whom I have not included in my list: These include Nancy Darrall, Bill Worraker, Paul Garner, Arthur Jones, Nigel Jones and Sylvia Baker.
There are also a number of names I have been forced to leave off the list because there is insufficient evidence to show that they are YECers rather than IDers. These include Colin Garner, David Back and Tim Wells (all three were signatories to the 2002 Estelle Morris letter).
That leaves a core list of nine fundamentalist Christian creationists in academia: Andy McIntosh, David Tyler (Manchester Metropolitan University), David Watts (Manchester University), Geoff Barnard (Cambridge), Graham Everest (East Anglia), Jonathan Swingler (Southampton), Peter Senior (Loughborough), Stephen Taylor (Liverpool) and Stuart Burgess (Bristol).
All but three of these were signatories to the 2002 Estelle Morris letter.
Finally, only one of the nine has a background even remotely connected to biology or geology. That is Dr Geoff Barnard at the Cambridge Centre for Veterinary Science. He has been described by Answers in Genesis as a biochemist. He also holds a Master’s degree in theology (university unknown to us).
Only two of the nine are professors (worrying enough, though, if you're going to Bristol Universities where, apparently, the physicists have been deceived by the devil).
My conclusion is that the creationist movement has had almost zero results in convincing British academics. Most of those who have recently purported to be creationist academics have largely been pensioned off or left academia.
It is clear that the movement in academia is centred on middle-aged people in their 50s and 60s. Nearly all of the names were creationists during the 1990s or earlier, rather than recruits during this decade.
It looks to be a seriously shrinking movement in academia. The fundamentalists appear to have lost over half their numbers over the last few years. It appears about 15 have left academia leaving a core of nine!
The one thing YECers have nothing at all to brag about is the number of scientists in British universities who are Christian religious creationist fundamentalists, and can back up their position from their professional scientific expertise. That base consists, it appears, of just one person, Geoff Barnard.
In practice, though, the reality is slightly different because six of the nine names look to be highly active in various organisations promoting creationism in the UK. They are the obvious names to anyone who has ever looked at this - Andy McIntosh, David Tyler (Manchester Metropolitan University), David Watts (Manchester University), Geoff Barnard (Cambridge), (Loughborough), Stephen Taylor (Liverpool) and Stuart Burgess (Bristol).
It is now abundantly clear that these six are working together through four or five organisations including the Biblical Creation Society, Genesis Agendum, Answers in Genesis, (possibly) Truth in Science and CSM. All but one of them was a signatory to the 2002 Estelle Morris letter. McIntosh was spokesman for that group.
Of course, the fundamentalists may wish to claim that creationism is much more widely accepted amongst British academics. Well, if it that is the case, prove us wrong. Provide us with the names and the evidence.
PRV
