Henry Morris and Virginia Tech

PZ Myers posts about owning an old copy of Henry Morris' The Twilight of Evolution.

Henry Morris was a professor and eventually the head of the department of Civil Engineering at my school, Virginia Tech, from 1957-1970. He wrote this book during his tenure here. (I'm currently a PhD student at VT in Computer Engineering.)

Yesterday, I went to a discussion group that was talking about Dawkins' The God Delusion. There, the topic of Henry Morris came up. There were several retired VT professors of Biology, Computer Engineering, and other sciences there that personally know both him and Ken Cumming, another VT professor who co-founded the Institute for Creation Research with Morris. It was fascinating to hear stories about what these guys were like when they were at VT.

Morris was apparently a top-quality engineer, but he evidently betrayed strong signs of knowledge compartmentalization from the beginning. One of the stories told was that in the middle of the night, he saw a vision or heard a voice from God telling him that He was going to divinely destroy Blacksburg, VA (VT's town) for its sins. Morris apparently immediately roused his entire family and walked the perimeter of the town, praying God's forgiveness on the town. God apparently listened, since Blacksburg is still around. BTW, Blacksburg is a not a big town, but it's no small feat to walk its perimeter... maybe they meant the perimeter of the campus.

I'll have to see if I can find these former faculty members again and get some more first-hand impressions of Morris in his early days. It could be valuable, considering Morris is the modern founder of the American creationist movement.