Answers in Genesis and an old April Fools Joke

Way back in 2000, the Institute for Creation Research had to apologize for a radio program it aired. In it Marvin Lubenow, the top YEC "expert" on human evolution used an a story from the April 1997 issue of Discover as evidence against human evolution. That story was about the discovery of Neandertal musical instruments was an April fools gag -- one that was meant to be obvious. And even if it was not obvious, a real expert on human evolution is someone who is supposed to be familiar with the field, the people working it it, and what has been published in the peer-reviewed journals. Real experts don't get what they know from short articles in pop science magazines. After Jim Foley pointed out that the ICR fell for an April Fools joke in The Talk.Origins Archive the retraction quickly came.Five years latter, Jim Foley has an update in his T.O. blog. Basically Answers in Genesis has posted to its web an article that again cites the April fools gag. The author is Brad Harrub of Apologetics Press writing in TJ, AiG's so-called "peer-reviewed technical journal". As Foley notes, the article also uses an argument that should not be used. Some peer review. Harrub has been continually writing some of the worst young-earth creationist articles around. He recently had an article in the other so called "peer-reviewed technical journal" of young-earth creationism: Creation Research Society Quarterly.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Documentation from AiG that the article in question did indeed make the printed edition of the "journal."Those who would use this in web sites, etc. might want to save a copy of the web page in question since it fairly likely to get edited since attention has now been given to it in an important place.Jim Foley posted in the Panda's Thumb as well, but the PT was down when I wrote my initial post.

The important issue concerns how effectively this can be used as a tool of persuation in the Creation/Evolution debate. Evolutionists are already convinced, of course, so while this is a great example of Creationist foibles, no one and no field is perfect, and science has its own peccadillos. Creationist reaction is likely to be, "Whoops, our side screwed up this time." Creationists are unlikely to react with, "This is more than just a faux paus, it indicates that Creationism lacks any scientific validity." Would that it would happen, or even could happen.In order to have any effective value in the debate, such incidents have to be placed in context, and you've done that by noting that Brad Harrub, a supposed PhD Creationist, is getting his information from the popular science press instead of from peer-reviewed scientific journals. You also note that a truly qualified commentators on the field would be sufficiently familiar with recent developments that the details of the Neandertal spoof would have been self-evident foolery.Most Creationists will dismiss such incidents as inconsequential. It is, after all, imperfect human beings conducting the research on both sides, and human beings make mistakes. That Brad Harrub screwed up this time does not invalidate all his other valuable contributions. This is where the debate becomes difficult, because evolutionists would make precisely the same defense of a scientist who screwed up. At heart the debate always boils down to the question of what is science and whether what Creationists do qualifies.--Percy

Percy,You make several excellent points (as usual). However, I would add that the real issue for me in something like this is not the fact that a given scientist or creation "scientist" makes a mistake, corrected or not (and AiG has actually corrected a few things in the past). Rather, because of the non-scientific nature of most creationists, this "mistake" will be widely circulated in their community, repeated, redacted, rewritten, and continuously cited for at least the next 10 years regardless of its veracity. IOW, a scientist making a mistake is very likely to be quickly hammered by other scientists, and often forced to retract or admit the error - or risk marginalization and even ridicule. The vast majority of creationists will NEVER admit that something is erroneous, even if the originator quietly retracts or corrects the mistake.

Well, it seems that Scientific American is joining the bandwagon. The current April issue has an April Fool's joke on the editor's page saying that they are going to be nicer to "creation science." Let's see if the creationists can figure out that it's a joke, even though it tells them that they're fools:

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

old arguments keep getting recycled in the creationist community. even after they've been disproven, or worse, shown to be jokes.here is my single favourite evc-type april fool's joke: http://www.nmsr.org/Archive.htmlhttp://www.nmsr.org/april_fool.html

http://objective.jesussave.us/That one is my favorite.

I guess they didn't notice that the direct translation of the paleontologist's name, Dr. Todkopf, is "Deadhead".

Thanks...the part about "velocoraptors rumored to guard the ark" was even wilder than plans for a pterosaur rookery. Outstanding science in the works.

Incidentally, that site's a satire, run by the same people who run Landover Baptist.

I know. We were talking about jokes and how creationists mistaken jokes as real and they use them for their argument. We occasionally get unsuspecting creationists who try to use evidence from that site. It can be heartbroken having to tell them that they've been fooled.

If you've ever looked at the guest book, it's amazing how many people actually fall for the joke and take severe offense.However, the site is well-researched. The "creation science fair" has a lot of creationist buzzwords, from irreducible complexity to ark feasibility.