It was just 5 years ago that the Discovery Institute proudly proclaimed that they had accumulated a list of 700 names of scientists holding doctorates who flatly rejected "Darwinism" and endorsed creationism. The public blogasphere ran with this story as it produced yet another creationist meme. At the time I was posting on a site where I ran into a person who claimed to be a representative of the Discovery Institute. . . . . he was quite proud of the 700 PHD scientist claim, to him it was all of the endorsement needed for something he was already certain of in his mind. He elaborated on the effort it took to accumulate the names over the preceding ten years (TEN YEARS WTF?) and how he was certain the list would grow. I had to ask: Over the past 10 years (prior to 2007) the international community has been awarding doctorates to upwards of 20,000 people in the life and biology sciences annually. This growing pool is being added to an existing number of PHDs in science disciplines guestimated at 500,000 worldwide. Of the 700, how many are in life or biology fields? Of the 700 how many are making a good living receiving speaking engagement fees from creationists institutions? And finally: . . . do you know of any in that group who came to their faith after receiving their doctorates? I never got to what percentage 700 would represent of the entire international number of PHDs . . .
Also, don't forget to deduct from the 700, all the ones that bought their degrees from Christian run 'Diploma mills'....and are now working as pseudo-scientists for the 'Liars for Jesus' at Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research and other such laughable institutions.
A good point, how many of the "700 PHD scientists" that they claim are denouncing "Darwinism" actually hold legitimate academic credentials in related disciplines from real colleges? Then there is the fact that the term "Darwinism" is not used by the scientific community, much of what they argue against is from Darwin's time, outdated and ignoring the mountains of evidence accumulated since then. On the whole, the entire creationist effort is a demonstration of how effective the uses of religious indoctrination, carefully constructed misinformation and expertly used propaganda can be on those incapable of looking at this information objectively. 700 PHD scientists (even if they were all legitimate) cannot add up to more than a small fraction of 1% of the international scientific community. I guess "700" sounds like a lot bigger number than .016% (or whatever it works out to be). . . and they are still at it, a revised number I saw in a recent article is 737 . . too funny.
I just have to laugh when the creationists post stuff like this list of 'scientists' that don't believe in evolution: Gerald E. Aardsma (physicist and radiocarbon dating) Louis Agassiz (helped develop the study of glacial geology and of ichthyology) Alexander Arndt (analytical chemist, etc.) Steven A. Austin (geologist and coal formation expert) Charles Babbage (helped develop science of computers / developed actuarial tables and the calculating machine) Francis Bacon (developed the Scientific Method) Thomas G. Barnes (physicist) Robert Boyle (helped develop sciences of chemistry and gas dynamics) Wernher von Braun (pioneer of rocketry and space exploration) David Brewster (helped develop science of optical mineralogy) Arthur V. Chadwick (geologist) Melvin Alonzo Cook (physical chemist, Nobel Prize nominee) Georges Cuvier (helped develop sciences of comparative anatomy and vertebrate paleontology) Humphry Davy (helped develop science of thermokinetics) Donald B. DeYoung (physicist, specializing in solid-state, nuclear science and astronomy) Henri Fabre (helped develop science of insect entomology) Michael Faraday (helped develop science of electromagnetics / developed the Field Theory / invented the electric generator) Danny R. Faulkner (astronomer) Ambrose Fleming (helped develop science of electronics / invented thermionic valve) Robert V. Gentry (physicist and chemist) Duane T. Gish (biochemist) John Grebe (chemist) Joseph Henry (invented the electric motor and the galvanometer / discovered self-induction) William Herschel (helped develop science of galactic astronomy / discovered double stars / developed the Global Star Catalog) George F. Howe (botanist) D. Russell Humphreys (award-winning physicist) James P. Joule (developed reversible thermodynamics) Johann Kepler (helped develop science of physical astronomy / developed the Ephemeris Tables) John W. Klotz (geneticist and biologist) Leonid Korochkin (geneticist) Lane P. Lester (geneticist and biologist) Carolus Linnaeus (helped develop sciences of taxonomy and systematic biology / developed the Classification System) Joseph Lister (helped develop science of antiseptic surgery) Frank L. Marsh (biologist) Matthew Maury (helped develop science of oceanography/hydrography) James Clerk Maxwell (helped develop the science of electrodynamics) Gregor Mendel (founded the modern science of genetics) Samuel F. B. Morse (invented the telegraph) Isaac Newton (helped develop science of dynamics and the discipline of calculus / father of the Law of Gravity / invented the reflecting telescope) Gary E. Parker (biologist and paleontologist) Blaise Pascal (helped develop science of hydrostatics / invented the barometer) Louis Pasteur (helped develop science of bacteriology / discovered the Law of Biogenesis / invented fermentation control / developed vaccinations and immunizations) William Ramsay (helped develop the science of isotopic chemistry / discovered inert gases) John Ray (helped develop science of biology and natural science) Lord Rayleigh (helped develop science of dimensional analysis) Bernhard Riemann (helped develop non-Euclidean geometry) James Simpson (helped develop the field of gynecology / developed the use of chloroform) Nicholas Steno (helped develop the science of stratigraphy) George Stokes (helped develop science of fluid mechanics) Charles B. Thaxton (chemist) William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) (helped develop sciences of thermodynamics and energetics / invented the Absolute Temperature Scale / developed the Trans-Atlantic Cable) Larry Vardiman (astrophysicist and geophysicist) Leonardo da Vinci (helped develop science of hydraulics) Rudolf Virchow (helped develop science of pathology) A.J. (Monty) White (chemist) [more info] A.E. Wilder-Smith (chemist and pharmacology expert) John Woodward (helped develop the science of palaeontology) ...but when we look, we find that only 8 those are biologists of any form and more than half of them came before evolution was actually discovered. Some aren't actually scientists at all, they're mathematicians (Riemann was a mathematician whose opinion on the formation of biological life has no relevance, nor would Stokes, for example). Some of the examples are just bizarre. There is no point listing anyone from the 17th century or the 18th and certainly not the 16th because they had no concept of evolution. Creationists just list them because they didn't believe in evolution. Hardly surprising they didn't believe in evolution...a lot of them had never even heard of it!!! Most of them are completely irrelevant. LMFAO! What a hoot.
It is hilarious. So much effort has been put into these types of lists to make them appear to be valid endorsements for creationism by important intellectuals that this can only be called propaganda. It is nothing more than accomplished lying, leave out a few of the facts that you have mentioned and voila, you end up with a list that will get a great deal of mileage amongst the sheeple.