Many Scientists Admit to Misconduct

I've had a news story from the Washington Post in my "to do" file since last June. Recently several of the emails we've received question why we trust the Bible and not science when there is a conflict between the two--such as when determining the age of the earth*. After all, they say, scientists won't lie. Scientists have no reason to report false conclusions. We can trust scientists--and obviously this means we can't trust the Bible.

Setting aside the fact that the Bible has never needed to be revised, and science book s are revised every couple of years, just how honest are scientists? A June 9th article in the Washington Post reports that 15.3% of scientists responponding to a survey said that they dropped data from analysis based on a gut feeling. The Washington Post reported:

"And more than 15 percent [of scientists] admitted they had changed a study's design or results to satisfy a sponsor, or ignored observations because they had a "gut feeling" they were inaccurate."

None of those failings qualifies as outright scientific misconduct under the strict definition used by federal regulators. But they could take at least as large a toll on science as the rare, high-profile cases of clear-cut falsification, said Brian Martinson, an investigator with the HealthPartners Research Foundation in Minneapolis, who led the study appearing in today's issue of the journal Nature."

"The fraud cases are explosive and can be very damaging to public trust," Martinson said. "But these other kinds of things can be more corrosive to science, especially since they're so common."

Can you trust the science used to determine the earth is billions of years old?* There are over 100 methods of radiometric dating of rocks. But when a rock is tested they give widely different results. So what happens when a rock a scientist feels is 200,000,000 years old is dated? The results that identify the rock as being 400 thousand, three million, and 60,000,000 years old are discarded, based on a gut feeling that the correct result is the one that gives the age of the rock as being 175,000,000 years old.

Based on the data, what is the correct conclusion? That the testing is not conclusive. The date can not be determined using radiometric dating.

Of course, we know from the Bible that the earth is much younger than the millions (billions) of years people are attempting to prove using science, adjusted by personal opinion.

*The age of the earth is important, because an earth that is billions of years old is required for evolution. If the earth is just a few thousand, or even a few million years old, there is not enough time for evolution to work and the only other option is that God created everything--just like it says in the Bible.