Saturday, December 27, 2014

Karl Giberson: 2014 Revenge of the Creationists

Karl Giberson has written a post for the Daily Beast called “Revenge of the Creationists,” in which he outlines all of the recent developments in the land of young-earth creationism, although he lumps in climate change as well, a related and often correlative movement.  Aside: I am currently working on a post involving the examination of young earth creationism as a natural theology-based heresy.  Anyway, back to Giberson.  Of course, leading the charge is Ken Ham.  Giberson writes:
America’s leading science denialist is Ken Ham, head of the Answers in Genesis organization that built the infamous $30 million Creation Museum in Kentucky. He also put up a billboard in Times Square to raise funds for an even more ambitious Noah’s Ark Theme Park. Ham’s wacky ideas went primetime in February when he debated Bill Nye. An estimated three million viewers watched Ham claim that the earth is 10,000 years old, the Big Bang never happened, and Darwinian evolution is a hoax. His greatest howler, however—and my top anti-science salvo of 2014—would have to be his wholesale dismissal of the entire scientific enterprise as an atheistic missionary effort: “Science has been hijacked by secularists,” he claimed, who seek to indoctrinate us with “the religion of naturalism.”
It is quite clear from his writings that Ham has absolutely no idea how science actually operates and, as further evidence of his bad judgment in this area, relies on writers who know little to nothing of the areas in which they write.  This creates a two-fer-one bad science punch, giving your average scientist (and even most reasonably educated people) yet another reason to think Christianity is stupid. 

I differ from Giberson in his analysis of his point number four:
Climate change is arguably the most serious form of science denial. Creationism may be wrong, but embracing it won’t wreck the planet.  The last few years have seen many howlers on climate change including Senator Inhofe’s claim that humans cannot possibly influence the climate because “God’s still up there." 
There are plenty of examples of people who have embraced the young earth model who believe that the climate will be just fine because all of the changes recorded in the geological record are only six thousand years old.  The corollary to this is that, because earth is only six thousand years old, God must be returning soon, so why should we care how we treat the environment?  I saw that argument made a few years back (cannot find the post at the moment).  Albert Mohler gets a spot, as well as the Discovery Institute's Stephen Meyer, for this skewed analysis of the Cambrian explosion.  The only people missing are Kirk Cameron and Banana Ray Comfort.  Read the whole thing.  His tone is dismissive, but he is largely correct in his assessments.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:26 PM

    Ham belongs on a morphine drip. His brain is that of a 4 yr old waiting for Santa at his chimney. No one told him that it has a detour to keep rain from putting the fire out.
    Most people "I hope read the Bible as a story book filled with fiction and non-fiction
    passages. Its a guide for humanity. I still can not make my cane into a snake. Maybe
    Moses or Ahmoses can.

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  2. On dear! Giberson doesn't understand the difference between observational science and historical science! Clearly he wasn't listening carefully enough!

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  3. Many of us think of spirituality as being achieved through religious laws and pray or attendance. It is born within and grows with our thoughts.

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  4. Told you so. And I suspect that Liar Ham has waited a fortnight to respond hoping that only fellow YEC science deniers, and those already indoctrinated that Ham understands 'science' better than anybody else, will see the 'response':
    http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2015/01/09/creationists-dont-deny-science/
    Ham lied during the debate (as he does again here) that "science has been hijacked by secularists". And he rejects vast swathes of what he dogmatically labels 'historical science'.
    "If you start with man’s word, then you will interpret the evidence of the present through the lens of millions of years of naturalistic processes." Lies. Scientists start with the evidence - plus what has already been proposed as true based upon previous evidence. They do not start with a book - with which all conclusions must be forced to fit. Unlike Liar Ham.
    Naturalism is not a 'religion' and Ken Ham IS anti-science. If the evidence fitted with Genesis Ken Ham would be pro-science.
    What Ken Ham loves is LYING.

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  5. PS
    My latest post here may be of interest:
    http://forums.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2967&start=1605

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