quote:Originally posted by kodachi:
I'm sure the man is very intelligent and I can tell you respect his work. However the engineering/technical/science field that he's had all his formal training does not include advanced degrees of biology or medicine. I am just wary of people who are "self taught" about things as important as this. I mean he could not have achieved all of his advanced technical and engineering degrees in hydraulics by just studying and reading on his own. He had to go to school. I would think that if you're going to use this guy as an example of a evolution vs, creationist scientist, and use his degrees to make a point. He should have degrees in the appropriate fields. I wouldn't want to be in a building that was designed by a structural engineer who was self taught. That's my feeling on it, at least. I'm sorry if you think I'm coming back to this point so much.
Hi Kodachi,
If Dr. Henry Morris, were he still alive, or his son, also Dr. Henry Morris, Jr. -- were to tell you about the Bible, Creation, and salvation -- would you refuse to listen to them BECAUSE they do not have a degree in astronomy, biology, or any other of the life science fields? If Dr. Morris, Sr., had told you that he had studied, taught, and wrote about the Bible and Christianity for fifty years -- you would still walk away -- because he does not have a Ph.D. from a seminary, or in a science field you acknowledge?
Let me tell you a story about two Muslim brothers. Ergun and Emir Caner came to America as teenagers; their father a leader in the Muslim religion. They were part of a devout Muslim family living in the midwest. While in high school, Ergun became friends with an American -- who was a Christian, a Baptist. The friend constantly invited Ergun to attend church with him. Finally, the friend wore him down and Ergun went to the small Baptist church with his friend.
What Ergun found was a small Baptist church with a pastor who only had an eighth grade education -- but, he preached good sermons, sermons full of the love of God. And the people in the church welcomed Ergun with open arms, showing Christian love to this Muslim teenager. Out of curiosity, Ergun continued to attend church with his friend -- until one day, he felt the tugging of the Holy Spirit upon his heart. Ergun went forward and invited Jesus Christ to come into his heart and be his Lord and Savior.
Later, Ergun would tell people that this pastor, this church, "Loved him all the way to the cross." Yet, this pastor did not have a degree from a seminary; he did not even have a high school diploma. But, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he led this young Muslim boy into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Ergun then brought his brother, Emir, to church -- and to make a long story short -- Emir became a born again Christian believer.
Both went on to get their Ph.D. and today, Dr. Ergun Caner is president of Liberty University Seminary in Virginia. And, his brother, Dr. Emir Caner, became the founding Dean of The College at Southwestern, Director of the Center for Free Church Studies and Professor of History at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and remained there until he accepted the call of Truett-McConnell College to become its eighth president in August 2008.
Kodachi, by your reasoning, both of the men should have walked away from that uneducated Baptist pastor in that small Baptist church. After all, he only had an eighth grade education. What could he teach these two young teenage Muslim boys? Enough to put them on the road to what they are today.
You are correct that if I want to have a building designed and built; I would go to those who have the training and knowledge. However, that is not always found in institutions of higher learning.
In 1963, I took a position in a company named Ramo Wooldridge (now called TRW). A small group of us went there to set up a lab for testing the first military spec mini-computer, the AN/YUK-1 computer. In the area where we were setting up our lab for testing these computers; there was a microwave lab which was being phased out. A young kid, only 18 years old, was the last microwave engineer left to phase out that lab. Once that was done, he came into our department to work on computers -- a totally different field for him. Yet, he quickly became very proficient -- to the point that our boss was afraid to leave him alone in the lab -- for fear that he would redesign the computer.
After he had been with us less than two weeks, as our boss was walking through the lab, the kid called him, "Gil, let me show you what I have" -- he pressed a button and the computer began to speak, "Hello, I am an AN/YUK-1 mini-computer." I thought our boss, Gil, would have a heart attack. He screamed at the kid, "Take it out! Take it out!" The kid told him, "Gil, it is only software. I did no hardware changes."
Gil replied, in a panic, "I don't care! Take it out!" This was long before computers could talk.
This was also before there were any mobile telephones in cars. A couple of months later, we went on a coffee break and the kid asked me to follow him to his car. He picked up a telephone in his car and called a friend who was still in the building. I was amazed -- this was over forty years before wireless phones. He opened the trunk of his car -- and it was jammed with electronic equipment. He and a friend built it; then went up on Mt. Wilson late at night and hid an antennae there. He could call from his car and it would appear that he was calling from his home telephone.
Later that year, the kid got married and he and his bride moved into an apartment. From their second story window, they could see the screen of a drive-in movie. At work the kid showed me a small electronic transmitter frozen in epoxy, about an inch square. This was before miniaturization of electronics. The kid went to the back row of the drive-in movie, took a speaker apart -- and planted his miniature transmitter in it. After that, he and his bride could sit in their living room window and watch, and hear, the movies -- for free. Remember, this was 1963.
I asked the kid, still only 19, why he did not go to an engineering college and get his degree. His answer, "I already know more that most engineers. Why should I waste four years learning what I already know?" And, I had to agree with him.
A year after joining our department, and after many near heart attacks with our boss -- the kid left and took a position designing special effects equipment for a major television network in Los Angeles. I would venture to say that many of the innovations in television which we have enjoyed over the years - came from the brain of this kid.
One last story: In the late 1960s, I was selling computers for Digital Equipment Corporation in Palo Alto, California. We all got a chuckle when we received a letter from an apparently illiterate man telling us that he wanted to buy a computer for his son. At that time, the lowest cost computer one could buy was the PDP-8S which sold for $10,000 -- with no monitor, no keyboard, no mouse, etc. -- just the bare box.
As it turned out, the man was an illiterate black farmer in San Jose and his son was a high school senior. The son was in the process of designing the first Digital Video Recorder (as a high school senior) and was racing with Ampex Corporation to finish his design and get a patent before Ampex beat him to it. His father sold one of his houses to buy the computer for his son; so that the son could use it to do his design calculations.
Why am I telling you these stories? Because, by your logic, you would have walked away from that Baptist pastor and the Christian world would not have the Caner brothers teaching us today. You would have walked away from my young teenage friend who has most likely designed many of the television advances you enjoy today. You would have walked away from this black teenage boy who was instrumental in bringing us VCRs, etc.
Yes, you would not have listened to these people -- for they did not have a Ph.D. in the science field which you will recognize.
Personally, I feel honored to have known these people -- and I feel excited that we, the Christian world, have the multitude of books and teachings which came from the heart, mind, and soul of Dr. Henry M. Morris. If we do not learn from those who have gone before us, because we will not recognize their credentials -- we are only cheating ourselves.
Don't allow educational snobbery to rob you of such great treasures.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
