Logos Institute

The Logos Institute (Dutch: Logos Instituut) is a Netherlands-based Young Earth Creationist organisation which, in its own words, "wants to improve trust in the historicity and trustworthiness of the Bible".[1] According to its website, the organisation has three pillars: Teaching, Education, and Research.[note 1]

Logos' logo.
The divine comedy
Creationism
Running gags
Jokes aside
Blooper reel
v - t - e
Not to be confused with Biologos, an institute promoting theistic evolution - something the Logos Intstitute appears to hate.

Contributors

The Logos Intitute's website publishes a number of articles related to creationism and (their view of) evolution, written by a several authors.

  • Dirk van Genderen is a former journalist[note 2] who wrote pieces for the Evangelische Omroep (Evangelical Broadcast, the Netherlands' most prominent Christian television network) but eventually started writing his own blog. As he has no scientific education, his pieces are mostly related to theological issues with theistic evolution and atheism. His reason, for example, for believing that God created the world in six days, is that it says so in the Bible.[2]
  • Dirk Gelooft ('Dirk Believes') is, apparently, a Dutch astrophycisist working under a pseudonym. He also runs the horribly formatted website gelooft.com, whilst writing outside of his claimed area of expertise by discussing the similarities in DNA between humans and apes.[3]
  • Douwe Tiemersma is the first for whom actual credentials that sound remotely scientific are provided; that is, he has studied medicine (which has at least something to do with biology) in Utrecht. After watching 'popular creationist videos' (which are, of course, totally not one-sided and oversimplified) he decided that creationism might be true.[note 3] When he had also decided that letting go the idea of a young Earth would have a great impact on his Christian faith, he concluded that creationism must be true and that there is, in fact, evidence for it. Tiemersma has written quite some articles for the Logos Institute, although most of this is way out of his area of 'expertise', including articles on cosmology,[4] astronomy,[5] radiometric dating[6] and pretty much anything else. He also turns out to be remarkably bad at Dutch spelling (often splitting words in two components where it should just be a single word), does not like to translate English terms into Dutch (dark matter and dark energy are simply left as such, rather than turned into their Dutch counterparts donkere materie and donkere energie) and considers Wikipedia to be a reliable source. And if someone points out that the scientific consensus is firmly opposed to creationism, the argument is dismissed as an argumentum ad populum.[7] In another article, he refers to evolution as 'evolutionism', while referring to creationism as 'creation' (something also practiced by Kent Hovind)[8]:5 That same article, however, also contains a rather more interesting phrase:

There are even scientists who have lost their job because of their view of creation. Nathan Frankowski made a documentary about this: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.[9]

Finally, a creationist who admits that intelligent design is also a form of creationism!
  • Geloofstoerusting ('Faith Equipment') is a Christian website focusing on arguments for the existence of God, mainly the argument from morality.[10] Its main (and so far only) editor appears to be the Rev. Gert van den Brink.
  • Geo Detective is an "an expert in 3D design/visualizing, programming and data analysis". The fact that these are quite different fields is left unmentioned, but creationists aren't picky when it comes to credentials and 'expertise'. Mr. G. Detective also appears to be an "amateur scientist" who has developed "a method for truth investigation".[note 4] Presumably, "finding the truth" means "pulling something out of your rear end". While Geo Detective's area of expertise appears to be geophysics and geology, he writes prolifically on other subjects, such as evolution and astronomy, while also claiming that evolution is a religion,[11] amongst other things.
  • Gert-Jan van Heugten appears to be the first author for whom actual scientific credentials are presented: a master's degree in chemical engineering. Oh, right... He writes articles that look scientific, but fail to even come close. Main interest appears to be astronomy,[12][13][14] though this is not his area of expertise; Van Heugten also appears to greatly dislike theistic evolution[15][16] and encourages people to be critical of Kent Hovind[17] - critical thinking is good, but only when it does not harm your own cause! Eric Hovind, son of our favourite not-doctor, is more popular: on a creationist conference, Van Heugten applied an (astoundingly fallacious) piece of creationist reasoning that is also used by Hovind Junior.[18]
  • Gert van den Brink is a vicar who appears to be one of the people behind Geloofstoerusting. Not much else can be said about him.
  • Jan van Meerten claims to 'do' the theological side of the creation-evolution debate,[19][20] but appears to write on other subjects as well (though no credentials or other signs of expertise in these areas are provided), including astronomy,[21][22] geology,[23][24] and of course the hate against theistic evolution[25][26][27][28] which most members of the Logos Institute appear to share.
  • Marc de Vries is a "physicist and philospher" who works as a professor of Reformatorial Philosophy at the Delft University of TechnologyFile:Wikipedia's W.svg (aka TU Delft). His education (according to WikipediaFile:Wikipedia's W.svg) includes physics at VU University AmsterdamFile:Wikipedia's W.svg[note 5] and a PhD from the Eindhoven University of TechnologyFile:Wikipedia's W.svg. All of these are respected and accedited universities, with Delft ranking 19th in the world and 6th in Europe for Engineering and Technology, according to the Times World Higher Education Rankings.[29] His main interests in 'normal' (i.e. non-creationist) research appear to be science in public education, rather than actual research in physics. The Salem Hypothesis appears to apply to him: a creationist with credentials in the field of engineering. As a philosopher and theologian, he has written an article on theistic evolution.[30]
gollark: * ideolasers
gollark: It varies between compass implementations.
gollark: No. ☭ bad. Also, I identify as a yellow libright.
gollark: The auth half is uncool.
gollark: Yep!

See also

Notes
  1. In Dutch, these are, respectively, Onderwijs, Opvoeding and Onderzoek. The 'triple O' is lost in translation.
  2. Educated at the Evangelical Vocational University and the Evangelical School of Journalism, of course.
  3. We feel inclined to disagree.
  4. The Dutch term waarheidsvinding is mainly used in legal matters - apparently Geo Detective is a legal expert too!
  5. Which, by the way, is the same place as where Ben Hobrink received his education.

References
  1. Logos Instituut. "Het Logos Instituut".
  2. Genderen, D. van (23 October 2015). Strijd om de schepping: over vlees en woord. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  3. "Dirk Gelooft" (27 October 2015). Apen zijn net mensen: Hebben we ons DNA van dezelfde voorouder geërfd?. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  4. Tiemersma, D. (7 April 2015). De kosmos: Bewijs voor miljarden jaren? Schepping en evolutie? - Deel 3 . Retrieved 10 November 2015.
  5. Tiemersma, D. (16 July 2015). Pluto. Een oude planeet? Of een jonge hond? Retrieved 10 November 2015.
  6. Tiemersma, D. (18 March 2015). De grenzen van radioactieve datering Schepping en evolutie? – Deel 2. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
  7. Tiemersma, D. (1 October 2015). De glijdende schaal van Reinier: een lesje retoriek. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
  8. Hovind, K.E. (2013). What On Earth Is About To Happen... For Heaven's Sake?: A Dissertation on End Times According to the Bible.
  9. Tiemersma, D. (5 March 2015). Waarom geloven in evolutie? Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  10. Brink, G. A. van den (21 November 2015). Is het bestaan van God te bewijzen? Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  11. "Geo Detective" (s.d.). Evolution exit! Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  12. Heugten, G. J. H. A. van (19 November 2015). Waarom de komeet 67P blijft verbazen: Hier zit een luchtje aan... Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  13. Heugten, G. J. H. A. van (1 October 2015). Water op Mars: Een storm in een glas water? Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  14. Heugten, G. J. H. A. van (28 September 2015). Een nieuwe aarde: Een oud verhaal? Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  15. Heugten, G. J. H. A. van (22 September 2015). Theïstische evolutie: Christenen tussen wal en schip. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  16. Heugten, G. J. H. A. van (6 March 2015). Evolutie als scheppingsmechanisme. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  17. Heugten, G. J. H. A. van (10 July 2015). Kent Hovind: Creationist met passie. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  18. Heugen, G. J. H. A. van (21 November 2013). Zondvloed als verklarend model. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  19. Meerten, J. W. van (12 November 2015). Recensie: Wijsheid en wetenschap: Hoe voorkom je ontworteld te raken? Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  20. Meerten, J. W. van (13 June 2015). Schriftgezag, wetenschap en werkelijkheid: Niets nieuws onder de zon. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  21. Meerten, J. W. van (23 July 2015). Nieuwe beelden van Pluto, Nix en Hydra. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  22. Meerten, J. W. van (16 July 2015). Pluto en de maan Charon kennen een jong oppervlak. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  23. Meerten, J. W. van (18 November 2015). Ontstaan van steenzoutformaties: Hydrothermisch of vulkanisch? Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  24. Meerten, J. W. van (15 July 2015). Nederlands model voor het ontstaan van steenzoutformaties op Amerikaans congres. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  25. Meerten, J. W. van (9 June 2015). De theologie en haar knieval voor het neodarwinisme. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  26. Meerten, J. W. van (23 September 2015). Bedroevend evolutiedebat. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  27. Meerten, J. W. van & Borger, P. (20 October 2015). Evolutie? Ja! Gemeenschappelijke afstamming? Nee!. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  28. Meerten, J. W. van (13 November 2015). Funest voor het kinderlijke geloof: Recensie van 'Het geheime logboek van topnerd Tycho'. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  29. Times Higher Education (s.d.). Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2014 (Engineering & Technology). Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  30. Vries, M. J. de & Kuiper, R. (13 November 2015). Kinderboek over evolutie verzet de theologische bakens vrij grondig: Een reactie op Het geheime logboek van Topnerd Tycho. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
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