And are there ANY young-earther PhDs who are not young-earth due to religious hermeneutics (such as those motivated by their interpretation of the Bible or the Quran or some other religious text?)
If there was compelling evidence for a young earth, one would expect to find plenty of scientists supporting the idea, regardless of their religious or non-religious inclinations. In the 1960’s the spiel from Gish, Morris, and Whitcomb was basically: The only reason scientists reject a young-earth view is because they hate God and worship evolution. That’s the background I grew up in that I had to slowly learn me way out.