In this ongoing, series I am pointing out how Young Earth Creationist (YEC) groups particularly Answers in Genesis (AiG) use deceptive statements to further their particular views on the Bible, science and Christianity. (Previous posts can be found here). But unlike my other posts where I wrote about specific statements and how they were deceptive, in this post I want to point out something different. In this post I will focus more on the history and purpose of the YEC movement. [I reiterate that I’m not inherently opposed to YEC beliefs though I disagree with their reading of Scripture. My purpose is demonstrate how these organizations deceive people into thinking YEC ideas are the only Christian ideas.]
In recent online conversations with YEC apologists I have noticed a striking lack of knowledge about YEC beliefs and how those beliefs are interconnected. While I often get frustrated with these individuals who claim a thorough knowledge of YEC ideas, I also recognize that part of the blame falls on institutions like AiG. It can often be difficult to find and piece together the beliefs of institutions like AiG, even for those who regularly follow their information. And this is the point. The YEC movement is not about ‘proving science aligns with the Bible”, rather these organizations simply want cultural control.1 Because the movement is focused more on controlling the narrative than on presenting science the scientific evidence is not as readily available as the narrative they want to present. This means that for many they simply never encounter true YEC beliefs or the implications of those beliefs.
I have already noted how YEC apologists will claim that “macroevolution” has not been observed and is impossible. Yet, their own beliefs demonstrate macroevolution in action. But I have begun to notice that there are many memes circulating about elephants’ trunks and giraffes’ cardiovascular systems. The memes (and apologists who share them) attempt to say that these are so complex they deny any theory of evolution and must have been designed. Yet, these apologists also seem unaware that most creationists’ classification of kinds would mean these traits developed over time. All creationists that I could find classify elephants and the entire Proboscidea Order together as a Kind. These YEC organizations never disagree with the conventional model that the earliest members of this order did not have trunks.2 The same is true of giraffes, AiG frequently brags about how visitors to the Ark Encounter cannot find the giraffes because they are represented by an earlier animal. Why do YEC organizations never seek to correct such misconceptions about these beliefs? Because it is not about building a positive case for what they believe, rather the goal is to create doubt about their opponents. If they were truly trying to build a scientific case for their beliefs they would highlight these issues in a detailed way so their adherents would be able to make informed arguments. Instead, they present information in a way that it takes some research to understand what they truly believe. And it does not matter that these internet memes do not align with YEC ideas they strengthen adherents. The goal is not to build a comprehensive scientific understanding, the goal is to create doubt in people for other forms of authority.3
A second major issue I see is that people do not realized how extensive and fast YEC beliefs say speciation happened. YEC beliefs include that each Kind had one representative on the Ark and this became the common ancestor of all species in that Kind after the Ark landed. Now for Kinds like the dog Kind it means that all 100+ know species of canines, including all wolves and foxes came about in less than 300 years. This is the same for species like camels, alpacas, and llamas. Why? because we have early records of them in the Bible or record of them before the Ice Age. YEC beliefs place Abraham less than 400 years after the Flood and even though camels were not on the Ark they existed and were domesticated by the time of Abraham.4 This leads to a host of biological questions that I am not qualified to answer, like how did foxes and dingos develop radically different chromosome numbers in three centuries? 5 This extremely fast timeline becomes even more difficult when one considers elephants and their long gestational periods. How did that early trunkless ancestor give rise to mastodons and mammoths before the Ice Age? These are the types of obvious questions that would arise in many minds if scientific beliefs were plainly laid out. However, because these beliefs are not pieced together in articles many simply look past the difficulties.
I think there are three reasons these YEC organizations cannot release long articles which discuss their full scientific beliefs.
- Doing so would illustrate the similarities between their beliefs and evolution. This would alienate followers and leading to more people asking questions. These organizations have built themselves around distrusting science and being the opposite of mainline explanations. If they provide straightforward scientific answers some of the distance they try to create erodes. If they have to build a credible history of how dogs and camels developed from earlier ancestors in 300 years they will be forced to admit it is all the same processes as evolution just sped up.
- Creating such scientific articles will force them to say “We don’t know”. While YEC organizations do sometimes say this it is a relatively infrequent occurrence. They frequently build their credibility on the idea that “We know because we have the Bible, while scientists are constantly shifting and don’t know.” And one of the major reason people buy into this system is because there is the security that that “We know God did it”. And for many adherents that feels weakened if specialty features of animals developed and were not “designed”.
- Most YEC organizations simply are not interested in science or at least demonstrating their theories are scientific. Notice the science that these organizations focus on is the kinds of kids science you see on PBS or at zoos. This is because that serves to make these organizations authorities. All they want is to become “the authority” in people’s lives.6 If they take the focus away from “worldview” building they cease to be the authority. This means there is no incentive to publish detailed explanations of their ideas, because followers simply accept their ideas without question.
The reality is these organizations do not seem to be interested in providing followers with details that would help people complete the picture of YEC beliefs. To me this shows their true colors;YEC organizations that do not provide consistent and open statements about their beliefs are not representing YEC but using it to gain control over followers.
- Obviously, there ere YEC individuals in other countries but they did not have wide support among Christians. However in America this issue became prominent because of the issue of Biblical literalism. At the start of the 20th century the Fundamentalist Modernist controversy drove the issue to the fore along with other issues of Biblical interpretation (though not all Fundamentalists were YEC, see B.B. Warfield). I have also written briefly about it here. ↩︎
- For an example of this see this article by AiG on Elephant Kind ↩︎
- I will give Creation Ministries International (CMI) some credit, recently they did release an article that addressed a similar vein. The did talk about how Christians were wrongly using some archeological finds to argue that there is evidence dinosaurs lived alongside humans. This is a positive step, but there are so many areas where similar steps need to be taken. And the only criticisms I have seen from them are about the beliefs that are extremely egregious. They do not seem to be posting articles about how some of the attributes people claim are intelligently designed developed. ↩︎
- Here is AiG’s timeline for Abraham. ↩︎
- Here is their article saying dingos came to Australia during the Ice Age approximately the same time they say Abraham lived. This means their acknowledged common ancestor (hesperocyon) had diverged into modern species by this point. ↩︎
- Notice how both scientists and Bible scholars are repeatedly maligned by these organizations. Any expert who disagrees with them is thrown out as compromising or worse. Even though there is a long history of disagreement on interpreting Genesis in the Church these organizations routinely dismiss it with the lie that Christians have a uniform interpretation. ↩︎
Squinting in the Light 
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