YEC methodology is founded on looking for excuses to pretend that YEC is correct without regard for the truth - and this is another obvious example. Understanding a worldview does not mean agreeing with it - why would it? YEC is expressly anti-scientific - the distinction between “operational” and “historical” science is an excuse to deny that - but it is itself anti-scientific. How much clearer can it get?
In my experience scripture isn’t treated much better than science either. It’s all about justifying the beliefs of the speaker with little regard for everything else.
Indeed there are. From someone who has never met a YEC believer in the flesh, I suspect this dialogue of the deaf you are having has to be maintained by isolation, societal, cultural, based largely in the geographical area called the Bible Belt.
So what do we not know? Many of us have read and discussed at length articles from AiG, CMI, ICR, DI, and various second tier sites. John Sanford, Nathaniel Jeanson, Andrew Snelling, Jason Lisle, and the whole pantheon of YEC gods have been closely reviewed. Search the forum history if you think anyone of significance is missing. It is not that participants here have some deficit of familiarity with YEC apologetics, it is that creation science has been regularly exposed for the overripe garbage it is. There is not a single, solitary, material claim of YEC which stands up to scrutiny, including erosion. Given the vast organizational presence of apologetic organizations, their journals and conferences, circuit speakers and websites, curriculums and institutes, it is astonishing that such a massive enterprise cannot stand up to any informed person who knows what they are talking about.
We are over 100 posts in a thread which you initiated, and throughout you seem more concerned with meta tangents about who you respond to, who you hope reads, style of discussion, time management, scope, and very little actually dealing with the evidence for the topics you raise. Do you actually intend to back up your specific assertions?
pervasive gaslighting of of the actual scientific evidence; and
a veritable Frankenstein’s monster of mismatched, often mutually-contradictory, claims.
YEC is apologetics not science. Like all apologetics, its aim is to win arguments, not a better understanding of the natural world.
… you are unable to discern that Tas Walker’s “extremely flat” and Michael Oard’s “flat to undulating” grossly misrepresent their respective geological features, as well as that Neller’s incoherent “geobabble” fails to demonstrate that plateaus are inexplicibable to mainstream Geology, and fails to even attempt to demonstrate how a global flood demonstrates a better explanation.
I would hope you can see how, under these circumstances, I am skeptical that your years were spent productively.
I must question, from your actions on this thread, whether the ‘science’ your father taught you and you profess to love contains anything in it of the scientific method and scientific rigor.
This brings me back to my “actions, rather than … words” comment.
Your actions on this thread impeach your words. You have focused solely on the claims of an apologetics ministry, and shown complete disinterest in the scientific descriptions and analysis of the features under discussion.
These are NOT the action of somebody who ‘loves science’ – they are the actions of somebody who views science as simply a source of malleable raw material, to be cherry-picked and distorted to further their apologetic aims.
And this is why I consider your claims to be nothing but empty posturing.
You do not appear “arrogant” so much as complacently oblivious.
The “point” where you can confidently point people at incoherent “geobabble”, copy-and-paste grossly inaccurate descriptions, and claim that those who make the rather obvious point that your emperor has no clothes “don’t really get the YEC worldview”?
To be brutally honest, this “point” does not appear to be too far removed from “[Ken Ham’s interpretation of] the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” So my question to you is:
Agreed. Please inform Georgia Purdom and Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. They bring it up constantly.
I would add: This is NOT saying that YECs lack a general interest in science topics. Many YECs love to watch science documentaries. They may watch Youtube videos of lab experiments or animal studies. But as @Tim noted, the YEC displays a neglect—and often even a contempt—for the scientific method and scientific rigor. This is evidenced even in so many of the “peer-reviewed” (!!) papers which appear in Young Earth Creationist journals. (Of course, the submission rules make clear that no paper is accepted that doesn’t adhere to certain YEC-based dogmas. So it is impossible for a paper to risk challenging various presupposition of YEC-dom. Falsification testing is banned at the start. That right there totally sabotages the possibility of real scientific rigor.)
Yes, Tim’s statement is a generalization. One can usually cite “outliers” and exceptions in any generalization about people and what they do. But I have a lifetime of engagement in the YEC community and with reading YEC articles and listening to YEC videos. I find Tim’s summary description a good one. [Yes, I rarely have the patience to actually sit down on watch YEC videos these days. Instead, I download the audio tracks and listen while I’m routinely multiple tasking, such as at the gym.]
Indeed. It ought to be possible to post a few of the very best and most compelling evidence for a young earth for discussion----but that never seems to happen. At best we get a few tangential points that get demolished quickly. MEANWHILE, countless heat problems remain.
Agreed. This is especially telling in just reading the first handful of chapters of Genesis that deal with the creation story and Noah’s flood.
Jeff previously claimed he’s trying to encourage the “most straightforward reading of the Bible”. Yet the most straightforward reading of these chapters leads to glaring contradictions.
I find that YECs ultimately get around these problems by interpreting these chapters in a not-so-straightforward manner (or in some cases, just ignoring the contradictions altogether).
I had one kind of “straightforward reading of the Bible” in my youth when I only read English Bibles. I got another “straightforward reading of the Bible” when I started reading Genesis in Hebrew. It was a big shock to me. I began to understand how TRADITION guides Bible translation. Some years later when I started dealing professionally with Bible translation committees and the world’s top exegesis experts, I began to understand how it was things like marketing considerations and sales which helped to retain the word EARTH instead of LAND in many passages where that subtle difference in rendering the Hebrew word ERETZ had struck me so deeply. (Bible translations committees which hold out for the very best accuracy can find their resulting Bible hated by the Christian public for “going liberal” or at least not perpetuating many of the impressions people had from reading the King James Bible and the translations which continued to be influenced by it. Check out the furor when the RSV translated ALMAH as “young woman” instead of “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14.)
Agreed. I only mentioned it because you brought it up:
Moving on.
And skipping ahead …
I agree it is not arrogance, but that’s not really the issue. Breaking this down a bit …
And that is why when I read “absolutely zero appreciation for science” by people who speak negatively about YEC in this forum, it encourages me because I realize just how little people know about it.
With all respect, I think we do get it. Many here, including myself, have worked all or most of their careers in science or science related fields. We know that it takes to do scientific work and get it published for the greater scientific community to see, review, and perhaps to cite for their own work.
[I deleted a few rambling paragraphs going into the details and importance of scientific work, the contributions it makes, and exactly why we get it. I finally decided shorter is better. You’re welcome! ;-)]
The point is, YEC - and specifically Creation Science - is apologetics, not any kind of science. Creation Science offer no innovations, patents, new medical treatments, or new areas of research and discovery. That doesn’t mean YEC cannot do science - they can and do. Anyone can use the scientific method.
I’d be willing to bet like me you (YECS) find comments like this sometime amusing, and even encouraging.
And now the bad news; the part you aren’t seeing, or at least not talking about. Most young people growing up in strict YEC churches are discouraged, in part because of Creation Science. Some 2/3rds of young YEC are leaving the church because of the discouragement. I saw the extent of this as a moderator for a large Atheism community on (the now defunct) Google Plus. There I would regularly see new members relating stories of how they had been driven away from their faith by family, friends, and community for the crime of trying to understand real science. You don’t have to take my word though, because Ken Ham wrote a book about it. Ham doesn’t relate all the pain and abuse some of those young people go through.
Apologetics are not science. If there really were scientific evidence for YEC, then there should be scientific contributions to show for it. Instead we see Creation Science ministries publishing misinformation, and gaslighting those who believe. That’s why you can’t actually defend Plateaus as evidence for a Global Flood, or the false distinction of “Historical Science”, or respond to The Heat Problem. No one is saying that religious belief is bad, or giving “discouragement to individuals wanting to believe the Word of God”. The problem is the total lack of science in Creation Science.
Completely agree. YEC seems to me to make Christians chose between what it means to be Christian and what humanity has learned through science. Why can’t a Christian be able to accept what ancient genomes say about the evolution of our species and interbreeding with other human species? Why can’t a Christian be able to accept the JWST measurement of a galaxy with redshift 14.32 confirming that galaxies were fully formed 280 million years after the creation of the universe 13.8 billion years ago?
And I hope @jeffb can appreciate the fact that this is not a criticism of him. NOBODY is able to defend those claims. The first argument is a complete non-starter, the second is just handwaving over a gaslighting-inspired false distinction, and The Heat Problem is so serious a problem that the few who deal with it must admit that (1) only a supernatural intervention can resolve it, OR (2) some future discovery is going to spectacularly make it go away. Welcome to my world of long ago when I realized that Young Earth Creationism was built upon a foundation of sinking sand—which obviously is no foundation at all.
@jeffb I feel bad, like I’ve been unfair to you, which was not my intent. To your credit, you have shown great willingness to discuss these questions seriously, which most YEC will not, or can not do. Thank you.
Unfortunately, all he’s really done is claim great willingness to discuss these questions without every getting around to actually doing it. Perhaps one should reserve judgment, but currently it isn’t looking good.
I think that is unfair. If a YEC (to stop picking on Jeff) is unable to answer a question about the Heat Problem (or other topics), that is not a personal failing. It is a failure of Creation Science apologetics to account for basic facts and principles, which ultimately traces back to ignoring the laws of physics. And the laws of physics are the bedrock of science.
I have no expectation for Jeff to be able to answer such questions; how could he? If I only get him to think about it, that’s a win. If other people read the discussion and see how YEC apologetics are literally arguing against the laws of physics, that is also a win. When everyone realizes the whole evolution/Creation debate is irrelevant to faith, we can all find something better to argue about.
(But I’m not holding my breath for that last one.)
We have a disagreement on that. It isn’t that he’s unable to answer, though of course he can’t. As you say, nobody could. It’s that he just ignores the question. If he had said that he was unable to answer, that would have been something. But again, he says that he’s willing to discuss the questions, and that’s as far as he gets. Is anything I said there false or unfair?
@AllenWitmerMiller and @Dan_Eastwood . I appreciate the kind words. But no worries! Trust me, I have real thick skin. BTW I updated my profile to read:
“Friendly Mohawked YEC” was the Title given to me when I joined PS. I suppose that does sum me up well, and is a lot shorter than:
“Generally polite, openly Young-Earther who doesn’t seem to care what people think about his hairdo, or his world view”
…
That’s been the intent. But yes I shifted my focus to various meta tangents. If you find the content here unsatisfying, you are more than welcome to shop other outlets.
“can’t actually defend Plateaus” “non-starter”… Can’t argue with those sentiments I suppose. More lost customers apparently.
Which is fine, I’ll just continue to address the Listeners I referred to earlier.
I do want to get back to those Plateaus (and Planation surfaces). I’ve managed to spend some time reading up on those some more. It’s been interesting reading.
I do want to get back to those videos, but first, I wanted to share an article I recently came across:
Here are some excerpts, with some of my added emphasis in bold:
Scientists at the University of Southampton have answered one of the most puzzling questions in plate tectonics: how and why “stable” parts of continents gradually rise to form some of the planet’s greatest topographic features.
Their findings help resolve a long-standing mystery about the dynamic forces that shape and connect some of the Earth’s most dramatic landforms—expansive topographic features called ‘escarpments’ and ‘plateaus’ that profoundly influence climate and biology.
Tom Gernon, Professor of Earth Science at the University of Southampton and lead author of the study said, “Scientists have long suspected that steep kilometer-high topographic features called Great Escarpments—like the classic example encircling South Africa—are formed when continents rift and eventually split apart. However, explaining why the inner parts of continents, far from such escarpments, rise and become eroded has proven much more challenging. Is this process even linked to the formation of these towering escarpments? Put simply, we didn’t know.”
The vertical motions of the stable parts of continents, called cratons, remain one of the least understood aspects of plate tectonics.
Their results help explain why parts of the continents previously thought of as “stable” experience substantial uplift and erosion, and how such processes can migrate hundreds or even thousands of kilometers inland, forming sweeping elevated regions known as plateaus, like the Central Plateau of South Africa.
It’s nice to hear some honesty with phrases like “most puzzling questions” and “long-standing mystery.” There are several naturalists in here who dismiss plateaus as any form of challenge. And they will continue to, which is perfectly fine really. Getting them to acknowledge good evidence to support the Global Flood is just not necessary.
I’m at some loss as to how you take this to support a global flood model of plateau’s, but thank you for drawing attention to an interesting article, which will take a bit of time to read closely. Here is the underlying paper:
Oh dear! Your pattern of bolding is quite telling. The passage actually states that
your “most puzzling questions in plate tectonics” has been answered
your “long-standing mystery” is being resolved
“Put simply, we didn’t know.” is phrased in the past tense.
There is nothing here to indicate that the “Central Plateau of South Africa” is inexplicable to mainstream Geology, just that the explanation (like much in science) remains a ‘work in progress’.
I would note that, unlike Neller and the apologists at CMI, these scientists are actually doing the work to explain these features – not simply attributing them to a global flood by a fallacious ‘God of the Gaps’ false dichotomy.
As the evolutionist astronomers Clark and Caswell say, ‘Why have the large number of expected remnants not been detected?’ and these authors refer to ‘The mystery of the missing remnants’.
But if you read Clark and Caswell’s paper, you’ll see that Davies and Sarfati are thoroughly dishonest, because Clark and Caswell actually wrote:
… the mystery of the missing remnants is also solved.
Clark and Caswell say that there is not a mystery. Davies and
Sarfati ‘quote’ them as saying there is a mystery, by chopping off their last three words.
Don’t be a lying charlatan like Davies or Sarfati. Don’t quote “most puzzling questions” and “long-standing mystery.” without also quoting “answered” and “resolve”.[1]
Unless you want to be yet another YEC whose total lack of honesty can be demonstrated effortlessly and conclusively.[2]
And don’t, as you did here, include a period inside your quote as if “long standing mystery” is the end of the sentence. It isn’t. ↩︎
Sarfati’s article is still available online without this blatant dishonesty having been corrected, despite Sarfati having it pointed out to him at least twice that I personally know of, more than a decade ago. His response was to rail about atheist dishonesty and blame Davies. He has not updated his article. ↩︎