Those scientists are usually charlatans. I would not trust any scientist who writes for creation.com. The fact that they have PhD's means absolutely nothing. All that matters is whether or not their ideas could hold up to peer-reviewed scrutiny. We already know that many theists assertions cannot stand the scrutiny of peer-review, which is why the develop their own journals, so they can publish their "ideas" there.
The common perception of non-scientists is that reviewers of new scientific research are completely impartial, objective and independent. But the reality is that these reviewers are often competitors in the same field, which raises a number of conflict of interest questions. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, admits this can be a real problem:
‘The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of
a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.’
Or as Robert Higgs put it:
‘Peer review, on which lay people place great weight, varies from important, where the editors and the referees are competent and responsible, to
a complete farce, where they are not. As a rule, not surprisingly, the process operates somewhere in the middle, being more than a joke but less than the nearly flawless system of Olympian scrutiny that outsiders imagine it to be. Any journal editor who desires, for whatever reason, to knock down a submission can easily do so by choosing referees he knows full well will knock it down; likewise, he can easily obtain favorable referee reports. As I have always counseled young people whose work was rejected, seemingly on improper or insufficient grounds, the system is a crap shoot. Personal vendettas, ideological conflicts, professional jealousies, methodological disagreements, sheer self-promotion and a great deal of plain incompetence and irresponsibility are no strangers to the scientific world; indeed, that world is rife with these all-too-human attributes.’
Cyril Belshaw, editor of Current Anthropology, notes the problem of abusive ad hominem attacks and over-sensitiveness during the review process:
‘And the most difficult question to handle editorially is the matter of ad hominem attacks seeking publication, and the even more ad hominem (verging on libelous) replies of those who feel they have been attacked ... If one thing clearly emerges from the editorial experience, it is that our
colleagues are emotional, easily hurt, and identify very strongly indeed with what passes for objective, impersonal science ... [This includes] ‘big names,’ some of whom seem extremely sensitive when their authority is questioned ...’
There are a number of reasons for this lack of objectivity—the main one being the competition for research funds and the fact that one’s peers are often the same people who control the allocation of these research funds. As Professor Evelleen Richards from the University of New South Wales stated on ABC Radio:
‘Science ... is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as “truth”? is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time ... [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that
actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm—in this case neo-Darwinism—so it is very difficult for
people who are pushing claims that contradict the paradigm to get a hearing. They’ll find it difficult to [get] research grants; they’ll find it hard to get
their research published; they’ll, in fact, find it very hard.’
Read more...
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j22_1/j22_1_44-49.pdf
