Lord Kelvin was a creationist

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Contents 1 Claim 2 Source 3 Responses 4 Fallacies contained in this claim 5 External Links 6 References 7 Related claims 8 See Also 9 Acknowledgments

Claim

Lord Kelvin was a creationist and strong opponent of evolution.

Source

• Morris, Henry M., 1982 (Jan.). Bible-believing scientists of the past. Impact #103. [1]

Responses

1. Kelvin disagreed with Darwin on the age of the Earth, estimating a much younger age from the Earth's temperature, but he failed to take warming from radioactivity into account - radioactivity hadn't been discovered yet. So his computation was based on false premises. [2] This may have caused creationists to number Lord Kelvin on their side.
2. Kelvin was a physicist, his opinion on evolution is irrelevant because physics does not deal with evolutionary biology.
3. It is not even true that he opposed evolution. [1]
4. Kelvin was not directly addressing the theory of evolution, but rather the age of the Earth. He was disagreeing with the proposed timetable of Evolution. This is similar to Hoyle's argument for panspermia. Neither directly negates Evolution, and at most simply challenges the proposed timetable. However, both were found to be incorrect in their original assumptions.
5. add more responses

Fallacies contained in this claim

• Appeal to Authority (Kelvin was a physicist and not necessarily an expert on evolution)
• Exclusion (Kelvin's approval of evolution is ignored)

External Links

• Mark Isaak's page for this claim [2]

References

1. From the "Address of Sir William Thomson, Knt., LL.D., F.R.S, President", in Report of the Forty-First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Edinburgh in August 1871, pages lxxxiv-cv:
2. Victor J. Stenger: Darwinism and the Age of Earth [3]

Related claims

• Many famous scientists were creationists
• Linnaeus was a creationist

See Also

Why is Creationism not a Scientific Theory?

Acknowledgments

• Thomas Kettenring