One of the things that I keep hammering home to young earthists over and over again is the fact that science has rules. Rules that apply to every area of science, whether “operational” or “historical.” Rules that have nothing whatsoever to do with “materialism” or “naturalism” or “secularism,” but that apply to Christians and atheists alike. Rules that are basically the rules of honesty, factual accuracy, quality control, and not making things up.
The need to define your terms and quantify them in an objective way is one of the most basic and fundamental of these rules, especially if you are going to try and discuss whether something can or cannot be created by a particular process. By denouncing demands that they stick to this rule as “obfuscation,” young earthists are basically insisting that the rules of science do not apply to them, in other words demanding the right to make things up, invent their own alternative reality, and flat-out lie.
For what it’s worth, Paul Price is one of the thirteen or so young earthists to date who have told me that I’m taking Deuteronomy 25:13-16 out of context by applying it to science—on this very forum back in December 2020. Such a line is, as I now point out up-front, effectively demanding the right to tell lies.
I have also seen similar things from other young earthists in the same vein. Over on The Other Place, one guy a while ago responded to me by flat-out denying that science has any rules at all. This, of course, is nonsense. If science did not have any rules, then we would be able to claim that mermaids were evidence for a young earth, because treknobabble.