Young Earth Creationism: 10-20 Year Predictions

Conversation
,
1

I’ve been following YEC for 30 years now. Back in the 90’s, there wasn’t a great deal of scientific support for it (at least what I could find). I’ve researched it off and on during that time, and was always glad to see what was being discovered.

Over the past few months I’ve chosen to research it heavily again. I’m certainly more encouraged now than ever in belief in The Global Flood, and a young earth.

So it got me pondering, from this observed “trajectory”, what the future holds. I’m old enough to have watched this topic for 3 decades now. But I’m also young enough to be able to watch it for most likely the next 2 decades (unless all the rock climbing, whitewater kayaking, skiing, or motorcycle riding takes me out early).

Given that, I thought I’d start a post about predictions. I’ll start with a few (and perhaps add more later).

Some YEC predictions over the next 10-20 years:

  • More PhD-ed scientists like Dr Ron Neller (Flood Expert Finds Evidence for Noah’s Flood · Videos · Creation.com) adhering to The Global Flood
  • More Global Flood scientific research similar to the recent bent rock layer studies done in the Grand Canyon’s Tapeats Sandstone.
  • Possibly more Creation-based laboratories and research centers.
  • Computer modeling of aspects of The Global Flood.
  • More evidence for The Global Flood (of course)
  • In this forum: More people adhering to The Global Flood and a Young Earth.

So, there’s a list to start with. Feel free to bookmark this, and bring it back up to me in the years ahead (in case I’m wrong)!

Now I’m curious: Who else has some Origins related predictions over the next 10-20 years? Doesn’t have to be specific to YEC.

2

I’ve been paying attention to the trend in creationism for the last 25 years. The general trend for creationism and intelligent design is downward.

Research polls (e.g. Gallup, Pew Research) shows that belief in YECism had been trending downward for the past couple decades. Google Trends indicates that interest in creationism (and intelligent design) has also progressively trended downward over the past 15+ years.

And demographics aren’t in favor of creationists, as the younger generation tends to demonstrate an even lower belief in creationism than older generations. As the population ages, we should expect the downward trend in belief creationism to continue.

Looking at geographic distribution, belief in creationism is prominent in the U.S. Bible Belt. I suspect creationist ministries will still be able to get enough funding (primarily donations) to keep trucking along. But I don’t expect anything other than the same rote message they’ve been peddling for decades.

There will be no breakthroughs in creationist scientific research (lol). Creationists have been rehashing the same arguments for decades and I don’t expect that to ever change. Creationism (and ID) will remain just as irrelevant over the next couple decades as they are today.

There is absolutely nothing that suggests otherwise.

9 Likes
3

This is nothing more than a fallacious Argument from Authority.

What matters is NOT the number of “PhD-ed scientists”, but whether these PhD-ed scientists can produce serious research either supporting “The Global Flood” (:rofl: at the pretentious capitalised definitive article, incidentally), or at least casting serious doubt on conventional geology.

Neller’s shtick of doing nothing more than producing vague “geobabble” videos for YEC apologetics ministries, does not count.

Nor does Nathaniel Jeanson’s absurd Traced.

Citation please!

Are there any “Creation-based laboratories and research centers”?

What we appear to have is mostly Creation-based apologetics ministries – ICR, CMI, AiG, etc. Lots of rhetoric – very little (if any) serious research or laboratory experiments.

This would first require a self-consistent model of “The Global Flood” (:rofl: again) that did not involve vaporising all life (“heat problem” again).

“More” would first require any evidence – which you have not provided to date.

Continued defense of Creationism requires either:

  1. evidence of creation (which, per above, we’ve yet to see);

  2. an audience that is sufficiently gullible and/or ignorant to be impressed by the usual Creationist dog and pony show (which this forum seems to be lacking in); or

  3. a particular form of masochism (an example of which would be a couple of ID creationists on this forum – but no YECs exhibiting this pathology has presented as yet).

Given your track record of Sealioning on this thread, I don’t think that anybody would bother.

When we get further evidence that you’re wrong, you’ll simply conveniently forget that it was brought to your attention, gloss over it, and/or quibble over details, and then carry on as though nothing happened.

2 Likes
4

I predict you won’t solve the heat problem, and thus YEC will remain physically impossible and require arbitrary non-biblical miracles in the next 20 years.

9 Likes
5

I doubt it. Indeed, a number of well-known science PhDs have left various YEC ministries because, despite lots of cash coming in, the management had zero interest in funding actual research. (Of course, funding PhDs on staff to sit in an office and write website articles and for “our own peer-reviewed journal” is routine practice. But it isn’t actual scientific research using the scientific method.)

Long ago when I knew leaders of the YEC community (e.g., John Whitcomb Jr., Duane Gish), I suggested to them potential funding sources (e.g., Christian businessmen with deep pockets and their foundations) which could have funded actual research. There was very little interest, I was told, because the Bible and “creation science” had already settled the matter—and that any incoming funds should sponsor more books and conferences. (It was basically an answer of “We already know the truth of the earth’s past. So our job is getting out that message.”)

Jeff, your post reminds me of the 1970’s when those of us in the “creation science” community were told that the defeat of “old earthism” and the Theory of Evolution was just around the corner—and even to the point that those myths of science could totally collapse “any day now.” A half century later the catchphrases and optimism remains popular with many but their actual prospects are even more dim.

This topic got me thinking back to my interest in the geology of region where I grew up. I had wanted to better understand how Noah’s Flood would have shaped the land where my ancestors had farmed for generations. Instead of finding evidence of a Noahic Flood, I was fascinated by the overwhelming evidence for the glacial molding of the land—and how it gave our farm some of the world’s deepest and richest fertile top soil. I also learned that if I could travel back in time, a glacier “ice wall” would have been visible from our farm—and it created the plateau which included that entire township.

I realized that the various glacial agres which shaped that region could not have been compressed into a few thousand years. It simply make no sense—and I soon discovered that geologists had detailed explanations but my “creation science” friends like John Whitcomb Jr. had no idea how they were formed.

Once again I come back to the overwhelming consilience of evidence. If “creation science” is true, I have to ask why God would create a world full of deceptive evidence which would confuse us as to its history.

Of course, as I’ve written in the past, as I studied Hebrew exegesis, my understandings of the Book of Genesis were radically altered, especially as I realized that the Hebrew word ERETZ was much closer to our ideas of “the land” or “the ground” than on “planet earth.” So when the Biblical text refers to “the heavens and the earth”, it is much closer to the idea of “everything in the sky and everything below” than “what astronomers study and planet earth.” This has obvious implications for the assumption of a global flood interpretation.

7 Likes
6

With respect to the Tappeats SS in the Grand Canyon, I posted some of my own photos and comments in this earlier post. Andrew Snelling's Grand Canyon rock study - #25 by Mr_Wilford.
I’ve spent some time in the Canyon, and am happy to discuss the Tappeats’ folds or any other related tectonics.

2 Likes
7

RonSewell

The most recent of Gallop’s periodic poll on origins was summer of last year.

Majority Still Credits God for Humankind, but Not Creationism

The percentage of respondents who held that humans were created in their present forms was at a historic low at 37%, having slipped from the peak of 47%.

I’ve read that predictions are hard, especially about the future. Boring predictions are simple extrapolations from present trends; interesting predictions involve discontinuities. As I am nothing if not boring, I will predict that the proportion of people holding to creationism will continue to diminish, with more fervent reactionary entrenchment on the part of the siloed creationist community. This is due to mixed forces already long in play, most especially access to information on the internet, which serves to advance and familiarize science on one hand, and on the other offers the very low barrier to setting up websites in the service of pseudoscience. Over the long haul, the former is more compelling to more people.

4 Likes
8

My prediction, based on extrapolating from past results: YEC will continue to recycle the same PRATTs it always has, and @jeffb will never present any of the copious evidence he claims exists.

12 Likes
9

I thought the articles by Mitchell and Tillman were very nice on their own. Apparently Snelling knows about them and only handwaved their analysis as “unconvincing”, without giving specifics.

2 Likes
10

Skimming that thread, I found:

I have to ask, in the four years since Snelling published that paper, has he published any of this “Future Work”, that might actually (unlike his original paper) attempt to provide evidence for YEC?

2 Likes
11

“This will require scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging of selected samples to closely examine the cement crystals which would show evidence of brittle fracturing and healing if the folding occurred after lithification, but would be still pristine if cementation occurred after soft-sediment deformation and before lithification.”

Using oriented samples (eg, bedding planes, fold limb geometry, etc) and a universal stage, we can determine the tectonic history of individual mineral grains.
Deformation of solid rocks will tend to align grain axes along various xyz strain axes. In soft material, the grain orientations will be random.

2 Likes
12

From Google:

Crystal axes orientations are influenced by strain through the process of crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO). Strain can induce a preference for certain crystal axes to align along particular directions, creating a characteristic pattern of orientation. The specific pattern depends on the type of strain (e.g., flattening, constriction, plane strain) and other factors like temperature and strain rate. [1, 2]

Here’s a more detailed explanation: [1, 1, 2, 2]

  • Crystallographic Preferred Orientation (CPO): CPO refers to the tendency of crystal axes within a material to align in a preferred direction after deformation. This is in contrast to a random distribution of orientations. [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
  • Influence of Strain: Different types of strain (uniaxial, biaxial, shear, etc.) can lead to different CPO patterns. For example, flattening strain tends to create girdles of crystallographic axes parallel to the foliation (the deformed plane). Constriction strain, on the other hand, is associated with girdles at a high angle to the lineation (the elongated direction). Plane strain can lead to clustered distributions of crystal axes. [1, 1, 5, 8, 8]
  • Examples: [2, 2]
    • Ice: At warm temperatures and lower strain rates, uniaxial compression in ice can cause the c-axes to define an open cone shape or small circle girdle around the compression axis. [2, 2]
    • Quartz: Quartz can exhibit specific c-axis patterns in different types of strain, such as girdled patterns in plane strain at low temperatures. [1, 1]
    • Magnesium Alloys: In magnesium sheets, the c-axis of hexagonal close-packed (HCP) crystals tends to align normal to the sheet after rolling processes, creating a basal texture. [9, 9]
  • Factors Influencing CPO: Besides the type of strain, factors like temperature, strain rate, and material properties can also play a role in determining the resulting CPO. [1, 2, 5, 10]
  • Practical Significance: Understanding CPO is crucial in various fields, including materials science, geology, and engineering, as it can affect the mechanical properties and behavior of materials under stress. For example, in magnesium alloys, the initial crystallographic texture significantly influences the mechanical response. [9, 9, 10, 10, 11, 11]

In essence, the orientation of crystal axes is not static; it can be altered by deformation, resulting in preferred orientations that reflect the applied stress state and other influencing factors. [1, 2, 5, 12, 13]

Generative AI is experimental.

[1] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015JB012628

[2] TC - Full crystallographic orientation (c and a axes) of warm, coarse-grained ice in a shear-dominated setting: a case study, Storglaciären, Sweden

[3] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008JB006138

[4] https://academic.oup.com/gji/article-pdf/241/1/35/61531360/ggaf026.pdf

[5] Orientation anisotropy and strain localization during elevated temperature tensile deformation of single crystal and bi-crystal Ni-based GTD444 superalloy - ScienceDirect

[6] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/powder-diffraction/article/rietveld-texture-analysis-from-synchrotron-diffraction-images-i-calibration-and-basic-analysis/F117F497F925C5A2C20ECD8A94FA0476

[7] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0096417418301276

[8] TC - Crystallographic preferred orientations of ice deformed in direct-shear experiments at low temperatures

[9] Crystal Orientation - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

[10] Anisotropic crystal orientations dependent mechanical properties and fracture mechanisms in zinc blende ZnTe nanowires - PMC

[11] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/am/pii/S1359645420310144

[12] https://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas421/lecturepages/strain23.html

[13] https://www.strand7.com/strand7r3help/Content/Topics/VISUALTools/ToolsAlignPlateAxesbyConnection.htm
Google AI results

13

Ron, I appreciate that post.

You make a valid point when you introduce data like that. Yes, there has been a downward trend among Americans adhering to YEC.

Two responses to that:

  1. It’s a sampling from society. The vast majority don’t spend time researching creationism. Given that, it would not surprise me to see that slow downward trend continue like that for a while still. What I believe, and is a part of my predictions, is that those who are willing to take the time and look into it will find their faith in the Young Earth bolstered.

  2. That’s a lot of why I continue what I’m doing (encouraging others to look into it). There’s a lot of information out there that the general public is not aware of.

Speaking of, for fellow bible-believing Christians here: If you have not done so already, I highly encourage you to watch two films, which are available for free on youtube: Is Genesis History?
and Mountains After the Flood. BTW, that second one discusses the rock-fold research that’s been mentioned here in this thread. It’s helpful to watch because it explains the research well. And it’s good to directly hear their side of that topic. I know it’s a lot to watch, but well worth it.

14

But what about those who were YECs, took the time to look into it, and found their faith in young earth shattered? How can you measure whether the movement one way is larger than the movement the other way? Surveys typically don’t ask “did you take the time to look into it”.

4 Likes
15

That would only confirm the prediction that YEC’s will remain unable to differentiate You Tube videos from legit scientific sources.

10 Likes
16

By “look into it” do you mean something besides just blindly consuming creationist propaganda?

You’ve repeatedly stated you’re doing all this research into the subject, but it’s still not clear what that research entails. Given what you have referenced so far, it really doesn’t seem anything other than just consuming creationist material.

That hardly constitutes looking into anything.

7 Likes
17

What constitutes “researching creationism” and being “willing to take the time” in your mind? Because what you have presented to date has been mostly YouTube videos, and a single, poorly-received, book.

I can’t remember (but may have forgotten a rare occasion) where you have ever linked to the underlying creationist ‘research’, be it on Australian geology in the last thread, or Snelling’s Grand Canyon work on this one – it’s always your interlocutors who track it down.

Case in point:

Why would a “fellow bible-believing Christian”, from outside the YEC echo-chamber, bother?

The presenter of these videos is one Del Tackett – who seems to have an enormous amount of enthusiasm for his worldview, but no relevant expertise whatsoever – his PhD is in “Management and Computer Science” and his background is in “software engineering”.[1]

This is further evidence that simply counting the number of PhDs is completely worthless.

Does Tackett “discuss” how “Dr Snelling has not yet found clear evidence that the sediments were soft when folded”, and that any such evidence supporting YEC will have to wait for “Future Work” – that has not been forthcoming after four years?

I find your returning to the subject of “rock-fold research” without addressing the thread (previously linked to by @BrushyCanyon) that criticises that research to be further evidence of Sealioning.

Here it is again:

If you want to credibly present rock-folds as supporting YEC, I would suggest that you need to address the criticism in that thread first.

That is the problem with making your “those who are willing to take the time and look into it will find their faith in the Young Earth bolstered” claim on this forum – a number here have already ‘taken the time’ and have already documented their criticisms of YEC claims. You are not dealing with a ‘tabula rasa’ here, and will get precisely nowhere until you acknowledge the fact, and alter your strategy to compensate.

6 Likes
19

What we have here is a textbook example of confirmation bias.

2 Likes
20

I approve of predictions! :slight_smile: Here are mine.

  • Creation Science will show continuing lack of relevance to actual scientific progress: No inventions, patents, methodologies, or new areas of research will result.
  • A total lack of consilience is the evidence for a Flood; no cohesion, no predictions that can be verified in a repeatable manner (for example: fossil discoveries).
  • A continual stream of new evidence that is inconsistent with any Global Flood hypothesis. Specifically: The timing of flood evidence in one location will not match the flood evidence found in distant locations (ie: lack of consilience for a global flood).
  • Continued fractioning of YEC ministries; with people splitting off to found their own related ministries. (Founding your own ministry is where the $$$ is).
  • Computer modeling of Global Geological History (There are already good efforts along these lines).
  • This forum: It is unlikely to be around in 10-20 years, but your never know. :wink:

@jeffb I’ll go one step further - I am willing to put money on any of these. NOT major sums though, because this isn’t about the money, it’s about the bragging rights. I want bets that I can collect on without causing pain. $5. $20. A case of good beer. Etc., Friendly wagers all. Do you have enough confidence in your predictions to back them up, even a little bit?

4 Likes
21

Dan, thank you for that post! That was great.

Yes, some friendly wagering sounds like a fantastic idea! I’m certainly game. And I hope you’ve seen me demonstrate in the past that I’m willing to own up to being wrong. I’ll gladly do so again if need be.

I also want take a moment to acknowledge you as a naturalist worth dialoging with. You’re very knowledgeable, and obviously very passionate about your worldview. Yet you have enough confidence in your own worldview to keep your dialogs with interlocutors polite and civil.

So, on to some friendly wagering. And we’ll restrict these to 10 years (you’re right, PS might not be around, so better cap it there). Also I’ll make these bets that I pay to you if I lose (no need to pay me). Here are some I’ve come up with, based on my items in the OP. I decided on itemized bets per bullet, and I added some quantifiable metrics.

If I can’t come up with 2, I’ll cough up $20.

I’ll wager on 3-4 like it, or again cough up $20.

Ok, I have a feeling I’m going to be paying up on this one. BUT, I’ll be a good sport and offer up a whopping $10.

Honestly, the only reason I added this one was because I just got done watching this:

Todd Wood and Paul Garner interview Joel Brown, who’s the new director of the Van Andel Creation Research Center, which sounded like the newest creation research center. But having just re-watched it, I see that it had been around, but in a limited capacity in the past (it did apparently have some history before its current location).

I remember watching this and wondering if a newer one like it would ever be created; which is why I posted that as a prediction. Perhaps more just me being hopeful. BUT, since this newest one exists, there’s a small chance newer ones will be created any time soon. I’ll set aside that $10 now…

I’ll wager on 1-2, on things like Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, or sedimentary layer formation occurring simultaneously across the globe (a similar notion to your third bullet) , or related to The Ice-Age. Again: $20.

This one might be too subjective. I certainly believe there will be, but I’m not sure the best way to quantify it. I’m open to suggestions.

A whole 200% increase from what’s been observed since I wandered back into PS a few months back. And since it’s been just me lately, two more is all I need. $1.

So what’s that, $71 on the table for me?? Hey, I have ten years to save :blush:. As you mentioned, this is really isn’t about the money (I don’t see parting with much more that $10-30, which to me is just “fun money”). And again, this is just about me paying up to you on ones I lose on. If you’d like to do something similar, that’s fine. I just appreciate you joined me in what I thought would be a fun task of making some predictions.

BTW do you take Venmo? :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: