Not long ago, I wrote about Answers in Genesis severely mischaracterizing Dr. Todd Wood because he refuses to agree with them on certain points related to evolution. One big problem they have is that Dr. Wood exercises faith. Dr. Wood claims that there are “gobs and gobs” of evidence for evolution (in the flagellate-to-philosopher sense), but he knows it’s not true because of his faith. Strangely enough, Answers in Genesis says that Dr. Wood’s faith is not enough. He must believe based on evidence.
Well, imagine my surprise when I saw one of their recent Facebook posts:
Notice the statement I highlighted. Based on Answers in Genesis’s own assertion, Dr. Wood’s reason for being a young-earth creationist is enough.
I wonder if the person who wrote that statement for Answers in Genesis’s Facebook post will be given the same terrible treatment as Dr. Wood. I doubt it.
First off I’ll say that I completely agree with AIG on the criticism of Todd Wood and I think you reveal yourself when you say that AIG gives “lip service” to the idea of interpreting data and when you make the insulting insinuation that AIG scientists aren’t “serious scientists”. Here’s your quote “the difference between AiG and many serious creation scientists.” So let’s see, Danny Faulkner with hundreds of peer reviewed papers on astronomy isn’t a “serious” scientist? And what about Georgia Purdom, Andrew Snelling, Jason Lisle, Nathaniel Jeanson, and many others? If you had made it clear that you considered AIG scientists (not to mention all the creation scientists working with CMI, ICR, etc) to also be “serious scientists” then that would have been one thing. But you didn’t.
I think the one who isn’t a “serious creation scientist” is Jay Wile.
I myself have often commented that evolutionists have a mountain of things they cite as evidence for evolution. But I also note that it’s all a house of cards. Not only that but it’s a house of cards built on sand on the seashore at low tide in the summer doldrums. But the wind has come up and the tide has come in and “evolution” is a disjointed pile of debris. No serious scientist, creationist or otherwise, has any business treating the idea of evolution with anything but the greatest scorn and ridicule. It is truly anti-science.
AIG’s comment is about this concept of fideism, the idea that faith must stand apart from logic and reason. Fideism is a complete canard. The fact is that there really is no grounds for attempting to use logic and reason to make glib statements because both of those things rely on having ALL the PERTINENT facts, which we do not, especially in regards to evolution and the age of Earth. Our knowledge is like a drop of water in the ocean, yet evolutionists continually act as if they know it all! What a laugh.
Doug, I am afraid that AiG only gives lip service to the idea that data can be interpreted differently. If they actually believed it, they wouldn’t treat serious scientists like Dr. Wood as terribly as they do, because the only difference between Dr. Wood’s views on creation and AiG’s views on creation is a matter of the interpretation of data.
In addition, the number of peer-reviewed articles you have says nothing about whether or not you are a serious scientist. Jerry Coyne has nearly 300 such publications, and I don’t consider him a serious scientist. In fact, based on your comment, I would assume you agree with me on that point. A serious scientist is one who looks at all of the data and tries to draw the most reasonable conclusion from those data. In addition, a serious scientist understands that there can be alternate interpretations of many sets of data. As a result, a serious scientist respects dialogue among different scientific points of view. These are not things that AiG seems particularly fond of.
Evolution is certainly not anti-science. It is a well-established scientific principle. In fact, you can’t be a young-earth creationist unless you believe in evolution. The question is what are the limits of evolution, and what evidence can be marshalled for and against the limits that you think should be set. Perhaps you mean that evolution in the flagellate-to-philosopher sense is anti-science. However, it is not. There is scientific evidence that can be marshalled in its favor. To ignore that evidence is the picture of being anti-science.
Finally, I would make it clear that my comments about AiG do not apply to individual scientists at AiG. I assume that each of those scientists has the ability to think for himself or herself. As a result, I would hope that at least some of them disagree with AiG’s severe mischaracterization of excellent scientists like Dr. Wood.
AiG seems to have a conflicted vision regarding evidential and presuppositional apologetics. Sometimes they act as though they are evidential and sometimes they act as though they are presuppositional. Methodologies of both can be practiced, and epistmological sources of both can be understood, but only one ideology can be foundational. Evidential apologetics rely on the sufficiency of the “second book of revelation” (the natural world) to be equal in authority and sufficiency to Scripture. Presuppositional apologetics relies on the ethical/moral condition of a person’s heart for accepting the truth of Scripture as sole authority.
For the evidential apologist, while a person’s heart may be considered to be necessary, the evidence itself if sufficient for proving many aspects of truth either not covered in Scripture or possibly in question in one way or another in Scripture. For example, evidence perceived as proving an old earth can be used to generate a hermeneutic that reads Genesis 1 and all other passages that refer to the timeline of Genesis 1 as allowing for an old earth.
For the presuppositional apologist, while evidence is invaluable in learning about things, the evidence can only ever demonstrate a likelihood and not a certainty. The only certainty is in that which is revealed in Scripture by God, and that received by faith, also given by God. The giving of faith typically employs second causes and often entails the observation of evidence.
AiG seems to go one way at some times and the other way at other times. This may be a result of differences in the thinking of staff members.
Excellent point, Jim!