Young Earth Creationist Dogma

(If you can’t baffle them with bullshit, scare them with thoughts of eternal damnation)

One thing evident is that Young Earth Creationists(YEC’s) like @Adam4004 on twitter who think the world was literally created in its present form somewhere between 6,000 to 10,000 years ago clearly don’t understand what citing original research means.  In communication on twitter, @Adam4004 stated that the fossil record and strata supports the notion that all of the strata as we know them on earth today were created approximately 6,000 years ago in a single massive flood.  Even though about 99% of graduates in geology and life sciences today maintain that evolution on earth started billions of years ago with single celled bacterial organisms and changed over time to become the variety of complex forms we see today, @Adam4004 believes he has a scientific platform which supports his biblically-based claim.  He furthermore defends his notion of science with proverbial “tooth and claw.”

After reading his arguments attentively, I decided to advance the debate.  After picking one of many possible features found in the strata which would not support the notion of the earth being created in one large catastrophic event known as The Flood, I took him to task on his claim.  As the vast majority of serious earth scientists know, the strata are composed of many complex and distinct layers which have formed at varying rates in accordance with a diversity of geological events.  The strata were sequentially layered and dated by well-validated methods of radiometric dating (there IS good evidence for this despite what YEC’s say).  Layered strata were also exposed to weathering and erosion in distinct ways at different times.  If his claim was true, I asked him to explain how the flood model could form discrete layers of accurately dated volcanic ash in the midst of sedimentary layers across the world. To this, he had no answer. When pressed to provide his source of evidence in defense of a global flood and Young Earth Creation, he only responded with a hyperlink.

This is his tweet:

@MysteryOnward Here it is. http://www.trueorigin.org/a…about 17 hours ago from Tweetie in reply to MysteryOnward

His citation was entitled Problems with a Global Flood? by J. Sarfati & Creation Ministries International(a rebuttal of Mark Isaak’s ”Problems with a Global Flood” FAQ in the Talk.Origins Archive) © 1998.  It can be seen by visiting the following web site: http://www.trueorigin.org/arkdefen.asp

First of all, the most telling thing was that this article had nothing to do with original research and data collection.  It was simply a rebuttal to a summative article which questioned many of the ridiculous notions in regard to Noah’s Ark.  The original article by Mark Isaak was entitled Problems with a Global Flood, Second Edition © 1998.  It can be seen by visiting the following web site: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

The second telling thing I noticed is that the Sarfati article covered localized incidences of high erosion of volcanic ash after Mount St. Helens erupted but it described nothing related to countless dated layers of ash spread around the world in discrete layers throughout the formation of earth’s strata.  If everything was washing around in turbulent oceans over 40 -140 days, the well defined strata and discrete ash layers would simply not exist as they do. Regardless of reality, @Adam4004 seemed to think that his off-topic and widely discredited article was a properly cited source article and served as supporting evidence for his claim that the strata was formed by a single catastrophic global flood event.

A third characteristic of @Adam4004 is that he always talks down to people he’s in debate with as though he knows everything and it’s beyond his disdain to offer “his” sources of information to anyone.   He communicated to me in no uncertain terms that if I knew anything and had studied Young Earth Creation, then I would know all of the things he knows and wouldn’t need to ask.  This is simply not the way scientists and lay people piece together how the world works and its certainly not a healthy approach to interactive dialogue with peers.  As for me, I graduated with honors from a major university in the field of biology, have taught biology and earth science for more than 10 years at the secondary level and have travelled extensively around the country and world to see geological formations with associated evolutionary features firsthand.  Because I am confident in my well-disciplined knowledge, I easily shirk off the insults & belittlements which @Adam4004 hurls at me regularly.  If I was new to science, his pompous belittling demeanor might throw me off and make me question myself.  Therein lies the only hope @Adam4004 has for influence on new people who come to twitter to seek truth through earnest creation vs. evolution debate.

In past dialogue on twitter, he referred me to seek answers at such sites as Creation Ministries International and Answers in Genesis.  These sites are strategically designed to advance a dogmatic interpretation of “science” via the bible.  I’ve been aware of these sites for years and have curiously looked in to many loose claims they have presented to understand where many of my students are getting some far-fetched ideas such as “polystrate trees” from.  As such, they hold little substantive value in scientific frameworks and don’t offer any coordinated research arm to carry out original research.  While these sites and many minor ones like them attack current scientific theories, they rarely advance original research by which to provide a more descriptive and predictably accurate alternate theory.  In response to my claim that they don’t carry out original research, he responded with the following tweet which I copied.  Here is his tweet:

@MysteryOnward Yes. ICE has several ongoing research projects as we speak. Every year. CRS funds ongoing field work etc.7:19 PM Aug 2nd from Tweetie in reply to MysteryOnward

The above tweet is unaltered exactly as he wrote it.  It’s funny that he makes it a point to regularly belittle me for not knowing all of “Creation Science” when he gets the acronym ICE wrong.  I assumed he meant to say ICR which stands for Institute for Creation Research.  It’s important to note that true scientists take painstaking efforts to establish and test their hypotheses. When someone is referred to an article, it is because it contains specific information which has been collected to support a specific idea about how events in the world unfolded.  Unfortunately, @Adam4004 sent me to a general web site with many articles as though to say, ‘read it all and make sense of it yourself’.  In looking over the many article titles and opening some links to topical articles of interest, I realized that @Adam4004 didn’t know how to cite professional source articles.  While vast in variety, the articles themselves referred to other research papers but were not offering testable hypotheses or original data to support/refute these hypotheses.  Real science makes bold claims which are also backed up by original research data, not simply commenting on articles & research carried out by other scientists.

Next, @Adam4004 stated that “Every year. CRS funds ongoing field work”. “Every year” is not a complete sentence but I assume it’s supposed to be connected to “CRS funds ongoing field work”.  Wow! CRS(Creation Research Society) claims to be “peer reviewed” but this is the CRS statement of belief:

CRS Statement of Belief

All members must subscribe to the following statement of belief:

1. The Bible is the written Word of God, and because it is inspired throughout, all its assertions are historically and scientifically true in the original autographs. To the student of nature this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

2. All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during the Creation Week described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation Week have accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

3. The great flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Flood, was an historic event worldwide in its extent and effect.

4. We are an organization of Christian men and women of science who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman and their subsequent fall into sin is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a Savior for all mankind. Therefore, salvation can come only through accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior.

If there is anything people like @Adam4004 make clear, it’s that there is a well-orchestrated effort by religious fundamentalists in the United States to subvert the findings of science and more deceptively advance their own politico-religious agenda.  @Adam4004 even stated to me that he agrees with the Wedge Strategy which is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the Intelligent Design movement.  It’s time people became more aware and educated about the underlying cancer of religious fundamentalism within the garden of our society and root it out like the useless weed it is.  The forefathers of our country created the separation of church and state in our country for a good reason.  They themselves were fleeing from religious persecution and knew in their heart of hearts that religious control of any government is a dangerous development.  In these most trying times for our country, people’s attachment to the ridiculous notion of Young Earth Creation identifies them as being indoctrinated inside a Skinner Box or part of an intentionally deceptive movement to win over the general Christian population with an ill-founded ideology.

@Adam4004 claims to be well versed in both evolutionary science and “creation science” as indicated by this tweet yesterday.

@MysteryOnward No. You simply hate that an interpretation that doesn’t fit your worldview exists. You wouldn’t know creation science research if it but you in the behind because you’ve never bothered to actually study & you actually think it’s okay to demand someone else do all your work for you. There’s a difference between us. I don’t demand you provide those evolutionary citations because I study them myself.

The truth of the matter is that @Adam4004 was given plenty of well-prompted opportunities to provided true supporting data for his claims and he chose not to provide them.  One can only imagine he’s fearful of the criticism it would open him up to if people knew where he was actually gathering his “scientific” information from.  I think it’s more likely that he’s following protocol in some manner related to The Wedge Strategy where he attacks irrelevant details in well-supported scientific mechanisms so as to seem technically scientific but doesn’t divulge his own alternative mechanisms which are really more agenda driven than mechanistic.  If his “scientific” ideology is never divulged, it becomes substanceless and thereby conveniently evades real criticism.

In the 1970’s, these types of Young Earth Creationists who maintained a literal interpretation of the bible became the laughing stock of science because they actually tried to scientifically defend things like Noah’s Ark, talking snakes and Eve from a rib.  One comment from the 1970’s was that “arguing with a Creation Scientist was like hunting dairy cattle with a high powered rifle and scope.”  Since then, these Young Earth Creationists have become covertly organized and political in the name of their religion as evidenced by The Wedge Strategy.  In fact, the whole “Intelligent Design” movement has fabricated a smart sounding identifier which doesn’t even offer a mechanism to be tested and they want to call it “scientific.”  Science is designed to study the natural, not the supernatural.  Any idea is scientifically substanceless if it cannot either be confirmed or refuted by tangible testing as we know it in the universe.  I am not claiming that religious faith is more or less valuable than science, only that if you want to reap the benefits of scientific acclaim, you must play by the rules of science rather than obfuscating them.

The main difference between evolutionary science and creation science is that evolutionary science has offered up a very fertile field wherein new discoveries are happening every day.  While there is healthy debate about exactly how some of these pieces fit into the larger puzzle, there is no doubt among modern researchers that they do.  In fact, many of the new evidences coming out now are happening because researchers are both predicting and looking for transitional forms in distinctly dated strata because they should be there.  Lo and behold, they are finding them.  If @Adam4004 was following active research in the strata(which he’s not), he’d have to predict rabbits and dinosaurs together in the same strata.  The reality is that Creation Science is a barren, lifeless and poisoned field of science which has yielded no fruits.  This is why @Adam4004 is not divulging his sources to me or anyone.  All I can think is that he’s a frightened man with an internet connection and way too much time on his hands.

I’m sure when @Adam4004 reads this, he will further belittle me to make himself seem superior but let it be known that I’ve included all the links, references and “citations” which he very reluctantly provided throughout our conversation thread.

It’s very sad that more than half of the lay population in the United States have been indoctrinated to distrust fruits of rational thought such as evolution.  As people like @Adam4004 continue to evade accountability for the science needed to guide our culture on a benevolent path into the 21^st century, the nation suffers.  Given the vast supporting evidence from all fields of evolutionary science, @Adam4004 may as well claim that the earth is flat too.

Respectfully submitted by Mystery Onward