| Duane Gish | |
|---|---|
| Born | Duane Tolbert Gish December 7, 1921 White City, Kansas |
| Residence | San Diego, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | B.S. Chemistry, UCLA - 1949; Ph.D. Biochemistry, University of California, Berkley - 1953 |
| Employer | Institute for Creation Research (retired) |
| Known for | Prominent public speaker on Creationism |
| Religion | Baptist |
Duane Tolbert Gish (born February 17, 1921) is an American biochemist and a prominent member of the creationist movement.[1] Gish is a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and the author of numerous publications on the subject of scientific creationism. Gish has been called "creationism's T.H. Huxley" for the way he "relished the confrontations" of formal debates with prominent evolutionists, usually held on university campuses."[2]
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Gish, a twin, was born in White City, Kansas, the youngest of nine children. He received a B.S. degree from UCLA in 1949 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1953. He worked as an Assistant Research Associate at Berkeley, and Assistant Professor at Cornell University Medical College performing biomedical and biochemical research for eighteen years, joining the Upjohn Company as a Research Associate in 1960.[3]
A Methodist from age ten, and later a fundamentalist Baptist, Gish has long held that the Biblical creation story is a historical fact.[4] After reading Evolution: Science Falsely So-Called in the late 1950s, Gish became persuaded that science had produced falsifying evidence against biological evolutionary theory, and that various fields of science offered corroborating evidence in support of Biblical creation.[5] He joined the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), an association of Christian scientists, mistakenly assuming the group to be aligned with creationism. Through his affiliation at the ASA, Gish met geneticist and creationist, William J. Tinkle, who in 1961 invited Gish to join his newly formed anti-evolution caucus within the ASA.[4]
In 1971 Gish became a member of the faculty at San Diego Christian College working in their research division, before accepting a position at the Institute for Creation Research (independent since 1981). He is the author of several books and articles espousing the tenets of creationism. His best known work, Evolution: The Fossils Say No!, published in 1978, has been widely accepted by antievolutionists as an authoritative reference for creationist concepts.[3]
Gish initially "assigned low priority to the question of age [of the Earth]".[6] Gish currently holds the position of Senior Vice-President Emeritus at the ICR.
Gish has been characterized as using a rapid-fire approach during a debate, presenting arguments and changing topics very quickly. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, has dubbed this approach the "Gish Gallop," describing it as "where the creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth torrents of error that the evolutionist hasn't a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate"[7] and criticized Gish for failing to answer objections raised by his opponents.[8]
Gish has also been criticised for using a standardized presentation during debates. While undertaking research for a debate with Gish, Michael Shermer noted that for several debates Gish's opening, assumptions about his opponent, slides and even jokes remained identical. In the debate itself, Shermer has written that while he stated he was not an atheist and willing to accept the existence of a divine creator, Gish's rebuttal concerned itself primarily with proving that Shermer was an atheist and therefore immoral.[9]
Massimo Pigliucci, who has debated Gish five times, said that he ignores evidence contrary to his religious beliefs.[10] Others have accused Gish of stonewalling arguments with fabricated facts or figures.[11]