Monday, February 12, 2007

When Science and Faith Collide

Today's New York Times has an interesting article about Marcus Ross. Ross was a doctoral student at the University of Rhode Island who wrote a 197-page dissertation about:

the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago.
While that's probably a fascinating subject for geoscientists, it wouldn't normally warrant national news attention. What makes Dr. Ross's situation interesting is that he is an avowed young-earth Creationist. In other words, while he put together a polished dissertation about the planet 65 million years ago, he personally believes the planet is "at most" 10,000 years old. Does that make Dr. Ross a lesser scientist? Can anyone adequately compartmentalize their beliefs in the way he does? Did he go through the motions of getting a real degree from a real university as a way to bolster the credibility of his version of Creationism?

1 comment:

jedijawa said...

Talk about cognitive dissonance!