Scientific American Anti-Creationist Rant

Scientific American science blogger, Dana Hunter, recently wrote, “These creationists have a distressing tendency to lie by omission, trying to lure actual geologists into associating with them by pretending they’re legit, and then telling their fundamentalist flocks they’ve presented their work professionally, therefore their creationist spin is SCIENCE – only failing to mention that wasn’t open and avowed creation science they were presenting to the professionals.”

This part of her emotional rant highlights the bias in the secular media against creation scientists. Instead of critically dialoguing with the scientific arguments that creation geologists make—like rapid sedimentation, catastrophic plate tectonics, or the problems with radioisotope dating—Hunter (and others like her) merely throw out a bunch of ad hominem attacks, accusing creation geologists of being deceitful and implying that they aren’t professionals or actual geologists. So who really has “a distressing tendency to lie by omission”?

Hunter mentions one creation geologist by name, Dr. Steve Austin, who for many years has worked for the Institute for Creation Research (though she neglects to refer to him as “Dr.”—typical of the way the secular world will treat such qualified scientists because they are creationists). Dr. Austin is definitely a real geologist; he received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University and has had his research published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, such as the prestigious International Geology Review. However, despite his education, research, and qualifications, he is dismissed by Hunter simply because he rejects the old-earth framework of geology. But how exactly does rejecting the prevailing opinion with solid, scientific evidence keep someone from being a scientist?

By the way, some people will ask why they don’t see overtly creationist research published in scientific journals.  Well, the same bias exists. If the research is overtly creationist it is by and large rejected because it is creationist!  The secular scientists will usually say that the research paper “wasn’t scientific” or “the research was poor”—or “it was a religious paper” or “peer review rejected it.” These kinds of excuses are used so that regardless how good the research is or how good the arguments presented, the paper can be rejected.

Hunter goes on to say, ”And they’re raising millions of kids, the future of our nation, to be pig-ignorant of real geology. I’ve got the books to prove it.” Well, she realizes where the real battle lies in the culture—with our kids. Secularists are fighting hard to capture the hearts and minds of the next generation because they realize that the battle can be lost or won in only one generation.

She goes on to say, “Conservative Christians whose kids are in the public schools can shovel this stuff into their own kids’ skulls on evenings and weekends. Those kids are (hopefully) being taught straight-up science during the week. But the kids of conservative Christians stuck in the private and homeschool environments are cut off. They haven’t got anyone to show them any different. So out they’ll come, joining society, with a gaping ignorance of what Earth science actually is. Some of them will manage to fill those educational gaps on their own, but many won’t.” This further highlights her bias and the desire of such secularists to indoctrinate all kids in their naturalistic religion!

We would argue that it is the kids who are indoctrinated to believe in millions of years—and are not taught any of the problems with this idea—that will graduate not knowing what “Earth science actually is.” The problems with writers like Dana Hunter is that they see the battle as over two differing piles of evidence—the secular geologist’s evidence and the creation geologist’s evidence. But, both geologists have the same evidence—the same rock layers, the same Grand Canyon, and the same sediments.  This is exactly what I pointed out during the Nye/Ham debate earlier this year—and of course Bill Nye refused (and still refuses) to accept this truth because he’s committed to his religion of naturalism and wants everyone else to also adopt the same religion.

The problem isn’t the evidence—the problem is the interpretation of the evidence. If you approach the evidence with a framework of millions of years and reject any possibility the Bible’s history could be correct, you are going to be blinded only to see millions of years—regardless of what in the evidence contradicts this. If you approach the evidence with the biblical framework (a young earth that was recently destroyed by the Flood), then if that interpretation is correct, observational science in the present should confirm or deny it.  The more we study such observational science, the more it’s obvious that what we observe in geology confirms catastrophism (such as the global Flood), not slow processes over millions of years.

I asked our resident geologist, Dr. Andrew Snelling, to give me his comments on this article, and here is his response:

This is an emotional rant by a non-professional geologist who sounds so fearful of a few creationist geologists making inroads into science education.  But what has she to fear?

First, there is only a handful of creationist geologists with PhDs who have limited time and funding.  Is she suggesting that a few of us are winning against the many thousands of geologists in academia with their millions of dollars budgets and well-equipped research programs?

Second, the secular conventional geologists control the professional societies and associations, as well as the public education system.

And third, if the conventional uniformitarian geology position is so good and strong, why can it not withstand any challenge by so-called fringe religious “nuts”?

Besides, whatever happened to religious and academic tolerance and freedom that are supposed to be guaranteed by the US Constitution?  Does conventional geology need legislative protection in the public arena, whether in professional societies or in public science education?

It’s interesting: those secularists who often proclaim tolerance are some of the most intolerant people around.  Yet, those they accuse of intolerance (like the creation scientists) are actually the people who are more tolerant of others, listen to their viewpoint, and then use real observational science to show that the secular views are not confirmed by what we can test in the present.

I encourage you to learn more about creation geology by visiting our geology topic page here.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken