| John Morris | |
|---|---|
| Born | John D. Morris 1946 |
| Residence | |
| Occupation | President of the Institute for Creation Research |
| Salary | $89,049[1] |
| Predecessor | Henry M. Morris |
| Religion | Baptist, Young Earth creationist |
John David Morris[2] (born 1946) is an American young earth creationist. He is the son of "the father of creation science", Henry M. Morris, and after his father's death became the president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). Morris is a creationist author and speaks at a variety of churches.[3] Many of his presentations discuss the fossil record and its relation to evolution. [4]
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Morris served on the University of Oklahoma faculty before joining the Institute for Creation Research in 1984. He received his Doctorate in Geological Engineering at the University of Oklahoma in 1980. Morris held the position of Professor of Geology before being appointed President in 1996. Morris has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech (1969), a M.S., University of Oklahoma (1977), and a Ph.D., University of Oklahoma (1980) in Geological Engineering.[5]
Critics have disputed some of Morris's claims. For instance, the following claim of Morris':
...elicited the following response from Jim Foley in TalkOrigins Archive:
Almost everything in this quote is a distortion (Johanson's and Lucy's names are about the only exceptions). "Certain clues suggested" doesn't mention that the whole find screamed "bipedality" to every qualified scientist who looked at it. "a little more erect", when everyone believes that Lucy was fully erect. "the partial hip bone and a knee bone", when Lucy included almost a complete pelvis and leg (taking mirror imaging into account, and excluding the foot). "has been hotly contested", when no reputable paleoanthropologist denies that Lucy was bipedal. The debates are about whether she was also arboreal, and about how similar the biomechanics of her locomotion was to that of humans. Given that we have most of Lucy's leg and pelvis, one has to wonder what sort of fossil evidence it would take to convince creationists of australopithecine bipedality.[7]
The statement of Foley's - "Lucy included almost a complete pelvis and leg" - also received criticism. The bones attributed to Lucy (Australopithecus) only did have half of a pelvis and fragmented parts of its legs.
In 1996 Morris claimed that the creationist belief that the human and dinosaur footprints were found in the Paluxy River was "at best, ambiguous" and that Duane Gish of the ICR asserted they "are" human and dinosaur tracks together. Massimo Pigliucci, citing various volumes of research wrote "there is no controversy surrounding the prints, only the creationists' stubborn refusal to bow to the evidence."[8]