YEC without the bible, possible?

Thanks dwise, I have often wondered myself how YEC could survive this long without any real evidence. It is curiously arrogant to assume they're right if only they can find enough holes in Evolution.I like to think of science as a constructive process. The ToE is continuously being built upon and refined, while YECs, unable to build any theory supported by evidence, busy themselves trying to tear down the opposing theory.They also don't seem to realize that their movement is fairly young. Many of the early church fathers did not interpret Genesis as they do. Augustine himself did not believe in a 6-day creation. Notice that they were not influenced by modern science, yet still arrived at these conclusions.I'm a Christian, I believe in the truth of the Bible, and yet I accept evolution. And I'd love to know why that's wrong.Minority Report has claimed that the Bible was not all of what led him to his YEC position. But he does admit that without it, the evidence would not have been sufficient for him. Is that all that YECs have? Their interpretation of the Bible? If Augustine, or any of the early church fathers are right, then their whole interpretation, and their whole "theory" crumbles.Just out of curiosity, dwise. You say you've been active in the creation-evolution debate for some time. What is your religious affiliation, if any?Edited by Meldinoor, : Looks like I lied

Hello Meldinoor, It was indeed a tea party by comparrison to other threads, and I hope we can try & keep it that way. I guess I was 'ruffled' because of the general enviroment in this forum, and the common ploy of attacking YEC scientists credentials. I'm sorry if I've over reacted, but I feel that to make any mention at all of a persons credentials in a debate such as EvC, is an attempt to disregard their views, which can be seen as ad hominem. Because it's not about relying on their arguments, or their knowledge of the subject, or how many of them believe it, but on whether their argument itself is valid. I believe I have already answered this question in my last post, regarding the poll. Because I believe history has demonstrated, that any new concept/theory is introduced to society through one person, or small group, and usually finds much opposition from the educated people of the day. In the past, large groups of scientists believed in a substance called ether, or in the spontaneous generation of insects from waste, or many other things which are now not accepted. This form of argument(polls, statistics etc), is also a type of bandwagon fallacy, or appealing to popularity, and suggests a paucity of valid arguments. I know that at the moment we are just discussing the topic philosophically, and have not yet advanced to debating actual evidence. But I feel you are just wasting time with this approach. The pervasiveness of evolution in education & society, and language used to describe it, had led me to believe up to then, that it had answered all the questions, and there were no problems for it to overcome. YEC was seen as totally obsurd. All I was trying to say, was that after reading a number of books, I then discovered that evolution did not have all the answers yet, and there were a number of serious problems yet to overcome. Also that YEC was now not so absurd. This is a fair summation of what I was attempting to say, but there is still more to discuss on this topic. Another point is that prior knowledge, culture, expectations etc, can effect the way we 'view' evidence. In his book 'What is this thing called science', A.f.Chalmers made the point that what we 'see', is as much determined by our mind than by the image on our retina. He demonstates this with a simple drawing of a staircase. Most people immediately see a staircase ascending up to the left. However if you look at the drawing for a while, you see that it can also be a view of the underside of a staircase. You can swap between perspectives at will, but the image on our retina remains unchanged. Furthermore if the image is shown to a remote tribesman who has never seen stairs before, all they see is a bunch of two dimentional lines.Now applying this to our topic. Sometimes evidence can be viewed from one perspective which appears right, until either someone points out another was of seeing it, or you learn something new or have an experience enabling you to see the same evidence, but from a different perspective. Viewed from either perspective, the evidence does fit both.After becomming a christian, the Bible gave me a new perspective with which to view the same evidence. In case you ask, yes I can see from your perspective, the evidence, what you 'see', does fit your theory. I hope you can at least attempt to do the same, for my theory.

Indeed. The ideas of an Earth much older than Genesis would allow, like Hutton proposed, and of descent with modification, from Darwin, caused pretty big controversies.But they won out.

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"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

Unitarian Universalist, of the atheist stripe.Back in the 1950's, I had attended a mainstream Protestant church (can't even remember what denomination it was and that church is long gone) with our neighbors and around the age of 11 I was baptized. At that point I decided to get serious and learn exactly what I was supposed to believe, so I started reading the Bible. I found it so incredible that I came to realize that, since I couldn't believe what I was reading, I could not be a Christian. So I left, because of nave biblical literalism. Right choice, despite its having been for the wrong reasons.It wasn't the usual deconversion. Normally, becoming an ex-Christian is a very painful process triggered by betrayal by one's religious leaders or by discovering that they had been lying to you, or as a form of adolescent self-deception motivated by a desire to indulge one's rampaging hormones without guilt (one creationist activist who claims that he used to be an atheist explicitly gave this as the reason for his "atheism"; however, he also admitted that during his "atheism" he prayed to God every night -- yeah, he lied about a lot of other things too). But in my case, I just accepted that I didn't qualify and that was that. I felt no anger and begrudged no one their faith nor have I ever done so. As stereotypical as it may sound, a lot of my friends have been and are fundamentalists and, using a McCarthy-ism, during college I had been a fundamentalist fellow traveller, during which I learned a lot of what they believed. The only problem I have with Christians is when they try to force their beliefs on others through the government or through aggressive personal proselytizing. And when they refuse to be truthful and honest, which, thanks to "creation science", they all too often are not.During high school, I started learning more about the church's history and became glad about my decision. Around the time I graduated from high school (class of '69), the "Jesus Freak" movement -- hippies started turning on to Jesus and converting to fundamentalism -- was in full swing and a local small fundamentalist church, Calvary Chapel, was on the path to becoming a mega-church. A number of friends converted and I became a "fellow traveller", though I remained highly skeptical and never converted. If anything, what I learned about their beliefs went very far in innoculating me against conversion. I went on to learn about other religions as well, which served as booster shots.Then later, around 1991, I discovered that I had been a Unitarian all that time, somewhat the same experience that a lot of other Unitarians have had.It was during the start of my fundamentalist fellow-travellership (c. 1970) that I first heard about creation science, but from the fundamentalists associated with Calvary and from Chick Publication's "Big Daddy" -- used to read those tracts for fun and to give my eyes regular rolling exercises. What I remember are claims of scientific evidence for a young earth and the story of the living mussel carbon-dated at 2000 yrs of age (with no references, of course, though I did find the original article in the late 80's and found that it had been misrepresented by the creationists, as usual). There was also the infamous story of the NASA program that ran lunar positions back through time, only to stop abruptly at 4004 BC with the error message, "There was nothing before this date." Then when they restarted the program and ran it back to the present, they found a day to be missing. The only explanation for the missing day was the passage in Joshua (?), in which the sun was commanded to stand still. Even then, I knew that the story grossly contradicted the functionality and capabilities of computers and so was impossible. It surprised me when, in the late-80's age of increased computer literacy, the story resurfaced again.So, since the first creationist claims I encountered were obviously bogus, I just dismissed creationism out of hand and thought no more of it until about 1980. I was stationed in North Dakota at the time and a debate was staged at the local university -- the seventies was when the ICR and other creationist organizations had travelling road shows staging such debates. I had duty that evening and so could not attend, but it got me thinking that, gee, it's still around so maybe there is something to it after all. I was curious to see if there was anything to their claims, i.e. what their evidence is. I very quickly discovered their evidence to be non-existent, a discovery that has been repeatedly and consistently verified during the subsequent 29 years.I'll share the first time I saw creationists in action one night in 1982 on CBN (Pat Robertson's "Christian Broadcasting Network" which he later renamed to "The Family Channel" after which I lost track of it). A Tennessean host would run various debates (I believe it was David Ankerberg). This particular night, a creationist was debating a scientist (kind of looked like Drs. Morris and Awbrey, though I cannot be sure since I didn't know of either of them at the time). I remember that the scientist showed several slides of hominid fossils, such as knee joints (to show evidence of developing bi-pedalism). Then he showed slides of a human pelvis and chimpanzee pelvis side-by-side. First from the side, then from the top, he pointed out two sets of characteristics that clearly distinguish the one from the other (i.e. whether viewed from the side or from the top, the pelvis could be positively identified as human or chimpanzee). Next he showed both views of a hominid pelvis. From one view it was definitely ape, from the other it was definitely human; thus demonstrating it to be a intermediate form. The creationist then proclaimed the hominid pelvis to be 100% ape and not the least bit human by completely ignoring the human characteristic (even when reminded of it repeatedly by his opponent) and concentrating solely on the view that displayed the ape characteristic. Of course, the host declared this to be a creationist victory and threw in the standard gross misinterpretation of punctuated equilibrium for good [?] measure.That event made a lasting impression on me. The creationist's steadfast ignoring of the blatantly obvious evidence that was repeatedly pointed out to him is a selective blindness that I have found to pervade much of the creationist literature. And my subsequent dealings with creationists have all demonstrated to me again and again that I most certainly did make the right decision 55 years ago.I'll address the rest of your post later today.

Show their credentials. The arguments have been proven to not be valid. Look up the term PRATT. There I even gave you a link. No matter how many ways they try to repackage them the arguments are proven time and time again to not be valid. Give us one argument they have that is valid. Just one. They do not have new theories. They are rehashing theories from the bronze age.Creationist: "I cannot understand why that particular natural phenomenon is the way it is."IDer: "I agree I can not conceive of a simple answer for that phenomenon"Creationist: "God did it"Ider: "No, the intelligent designer(which we believe is the god of the christian bible, even though we try to keep that hidden) did it." Gee, that would make it what? Science? Science does not claim to have all the answers. Only religion makes such a claim. So tell us what those problems are. Do you know what a scientific theory is? YEC may be a theory in a broad sense of the word but it is not a SCIENTIFIC theory. How about doing some research on that before you start equivocating.Links to make things easy since it is my experience that YECers refuse to do even the most basic research before they attack evolution. Scientific Theory
Equivocation

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

For the umteenth time, what is this evidence? You YECs are always saying there is much evidence for a young earth, but you never present any. So again I ask, what is this evidence?

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

It is the same evidence fundies have for everything you question them on. Faith and faith alone.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Actually, it was.I did a survey of "deconversion stories" on the internet, and reading the Bible was the #1 reason given for apostasy. Talking to atheists or reading atheist writings was #2. (BTW, Bertrand Russell is still surprisingly influential. As, less surprisingly, is The Demon-Haunted World.) #3 was the Problem of Evil; #4 was the multiplicity of One True Religions. The motive you cite as "normal", of finding fraud and hypocrisy in the church came further down the list --- I can't find my statistics right now, so I can't say exactly where. Evolution, contrary to the usual claims of fundie whackjobs, was right at the bottom. If, as the nutters claim, it's a cunning plot to destroy religion, then those Evil Atheists would do much better by handing out Bibles.

I'm glad we're able to keep this discussion civil. Unlike most threads on this forum, there has yet to be any name-calling or completely off-topic nonsense. Call me soft, but I think refraining from aggressive behavior is more likely to get us somewhere than otherwise.Minority, I was myself a YEC at a time, so I know where you're coming from. I will do my utmost to see things from your perspective, if you will see things from mine. Deal? Good. I agree. But you said yourself that both sides have valid arguments. If both sides are making valid points (I don't hold this view, but just for the sake of argument) how do you choose a side? If it doesn't matter who's making the argument, or how many, or how educated they are, how do discern?For a Christian, the Bible is a source of discernment. However, every time you read the Bible you are understanding it according to an interpretation. Have you considered the arguments for a non-6 day creation interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis? The list you provided only included works by YECs, so I wonder if you've been entirely objective in this?You are very right in saying that what we see is partly what we expect to see. Well, the same thing can be said for the Bible. If you assume that Genesis 1 can only refer to a 6 day creation, then any argument to the contrary will seem like rubbish, heresy even. Most people don't know that even the early church was split on how to interpret the first chapters of Genesis. St Augustine, one of the early church fathers, and a great theologian, believed the 6 days to be allegorical.http://www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/1988/PSCF3-88Young.htmlWithout further digressing into that topic, I will simply restate my question:
If both sides make valid arguments, and if it doesn't matter who's making the argument, or how many, or how educated they are, how do you discern? While I don't think you intentionally shirked the question, I think you may have misunderstood what I was really asking.I agree that truth is not determined by poll. But that's not my question. I merely want your opinion on why most educated people accept the theory of evolution. If evolution has so many problems, wouldn't a higher education, indeed deeper studies of it, reveal these problems to the scientist? Why aren't we seeing progressively more YECs as educations get higher? Many of the scientists who accept evolution are Christians, so you can't really argue that there's an atheistic axe to grind here. Do you have an answer to this? Usually that's the case. Evolution was introduced by several individuals, weathered a storm of criticism, then took off like a bonfire once scientists found out that it actually stood up to the test.It is important to realize that this hasn't always been the case. Scientific progress has picked up enormous momentum in the past two centuries. With the dawn of the Scientific Method, a framework for testing theories was in place. This promoted several theories and crushed the untenable ones underfoot. That evolution has survived more than a century of critics trying to poke holes in it says a lot about its tenacity as a theory.In the days of aether and phlogiston, science was more like a set of popular beliefs. Testing the theories was nearly impossible, nobody was able to isolate phlogiston, and nobody ever filled a test tube with aether. It is worth noting that both theories ended when scientific experiments proved their predictions wrong. The great number of experiments and tests of evolution has never proven it wrong. YEC scientists are sadly enough too preoccupied with poking tiny holes wherever they can. Arguing that the fossil record is missing one or two links here and there for example, rather than giving any really convincing evidence that it can't possibly be occurring.But I digress. You probably know of arguments that I don't, and this topic isn't about evidence. Perhaps in another thread we can discuss evidence with the same civil tone we keep in this thread. Thank you for the clarification. Let me just make a point before I go on. You are setting very high standards for evolution. It seems to me that you are saying that for evolution to be true, it has to be absolutely flawless, we have to explain everything with 100% certainty. No scientific theory has ever had to stand up to such high expectations. Of course there are things we don't know. We can't explain the evolutionary paths of each species until we study it. Doubtlessly, several subtle modifications will be made to the theory as more science is done. Even gravity is not completely understood, and with the addition of dark energy, and quantum gravity, Newton's theory of gravity may actually need modification. That doesn't mean he was totally off! We still send rockets to Mars using his theories.YEC doesn't have such high standards. Forgive me if I'm being a little bit slanderous today, but from what I've read about many creationist institutes (their own documents, ever heard of the wedge strategy?), they assume their position before they look for evidence. They don't need evidence, because they have their interpretation of Genesis. Unfortunately Genesis doesn't mention evolution, otherwise evolutionists could fill the gaps with the Bible too. They have to explain everything scientifically. Does this seem fair to you? One side has to explain everything, and dig up the evidence. The other side is so confident that they are already right, so all they have to do is attack and poke holes in evolution. How do you poke holes in YEC?That's just my perspective. Sorry for going off on a rant there, but I thought it's worth mentioning. It'll be interesting to read how you see it. I am and have been a Christian for most of my life, yet my faith has not yet revealed the true and absolute interpretation of Genesis. I used to be YEC, before I moved to OEC, and then theistic evolution. So yes, I think we are both capable of understanding each other's perspectives.

I considered it not the usual deconversion because it was a very simple and peaceful parting-of-ways. Most stories that I have heard and read had the individual going through a lot of emotional turmoil during the process.Also, most of the stories I've heard and read involved feeling betrayed and/or lied to by the religion and/or by the religious leaders. But then I've not conducted a survey as you had, but rather it was an informal sampling from two sources, a radio broadcast by a local atheist organization (no longer on the air) and a freethought magazine.Out of curiosity, where did "creation science" rank on your list? Though perhaps it's more effective at keeping people from ever considering converting to Christianity. As a motivator to deconvert from Christianity, it would probably show up as "having been lied to". I know of some elementary school children who were taught "creation science" and as a result became atheists, just as the creationist materials had taught them to do (Ray Baird's class in Livermore, Calif, 1981).

quote:

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Evolution, contrary to the usual claims of fundie whackjobs, was right at the bottom.

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But that doesn't seem at all correct. Creationists put so much effort into indoctrinating themselves and their followers to believe that if evolution is right (or even an old earth), then the Bible is completely false and God doesn't exist. It's surprising that that booby trap hasn't claimed more of them.Edited by dwise1, : added Livermore

While I'm anxious to see evidence, this particular thread is not the place. This thread is about discussing just how important evidence is to Young Earth Creationism, not what the specific evidence is. I have a feeling that introducing evidence into the discussion will get us nowhere but an argument about what is valid evidence.Perhaps instead you'd like to request Minority Report to present his evidence in an appropriate thread?

A quick history of "creation science", if I may. In part to support my comments and in part for Minority Report's edification.In the wake of World War I and with a sharp increase in high school enrollment, parents became increasingly alarmed at their children being taught evolution. The anti-evolution movement that developed was able to get evolution removed from the public schools through pressure applied to local school boards and to textbook publishers and through the infamous "Monkey Laws". The 1925 Scopes Trial was an attempt by the ACLU to challenge the constitutionality of the Tennessee "monkey law", but they failed to get it to the US Supreme Court when the Supreme Court of Tennessee overturned Scopes' conviction on a technicality (the jury should have determined the fine, not the judge); the next challenge wouldn't be until 1968 in Arkansas. However, the anti-evolution movement suffered such a public black eye, plus their leader, William Jennings Bryan, died; from Scopes Trial - Wikipedia:

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Edwards (2000) contradicts the conventional view that in the wake of the Scopes trial a humiliated fundamentalism retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint evidenced in the movie "Inherit the Wind" and the majority of contemporary historical accounts. Rather, the cause of fundamentalism's retreat was the death of its leader, Bryan. Most fundamentalists saw the trial as a victory and not a defeat, but Bryan's death soon after created a leadership void that no other fundamentalist leader could fill. Bryan, unlike the other leaders, brought name recognition, respectability, and the ability to forge a broad-based coalition of fundamentalist and mainline religious groups to argue for the antievolutionist position

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The anti-evolution movement faded from sight, but they remained active on the local levels, maintaining pressure on school boards and textbook publishers and enjoying the protection of their "monkey laws." Though while evolution had been driven out of the high schools, it was still taught in the universities and practiced by scientists. But then there came Sputnik and we were in a race to close the "missile gap", which caused a drive to improve science and math education; from History of creationism - Wikipedia:

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The American shock and panic about the Sputnik launch in 1957 lead to the passage of the National Defense Education Act in 1958 to reform American science curricula. This resulted in the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, also begun in 1958 and with the goal of writing new up-to-date biology textbooks. These new biology textbooks included a discussion of the theory of evolution. Within a few years, half of American schools were using the new BSCS biology textbooks. In addition, the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species was in 1959, and this sparked renewed public interest in evolutionary biology. The creationist fervor of the past seemed like ancient history. A historian at Oklahoma's Northeastern State University, R. Halliburton, even made a prediction in 1964 that "a renaissance of the [creationist] movement is most unlikely".

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When Arkansas schools adopted the BSCS biology textbook, the teachers found themselves in a dilemma: if they used the book then they'd be in violation of Arkansas' "monkey law" and be stripped of their teaching credentials for life (as I recall the penalty to be), but if they refused to use the book they'd be fired; either way they would lose. Susan Epperson sued the state and the US Supreme Court's decision on Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) struck down the "monkey laws" and also made the anti-evolutionists' standard methods of pressuring the schools and publishers ineffective, since religious reasons for barring the teaching of evolution was no longer allowed.So the anti-evolutionists had to change their tactics. Now instead of admitting their religious reasons for opposing evolution, they claimed that they had "purely scientific" objections which they termed "creation science" or "scientific creationism". They claimed to have "pure scientific" evidence ("nothing religious about it") for creation and they proposed a "two model approach" and made various demands of the schools; eg: stop teaching evolution; "balanced treatment", AKA "equal time", by including their "creation model"; include the "negative evidences" against evolution. Mind you, since "creation science" employs nothing more than "negative evidences" against evolution and related sciences, then the last two demads are actually identical.So you see, it started as a purely political trick, a deception to circumvent Epperson v. Arkansas. But then it also started getting used as an apologetic to ease followers' doubts and as a proselytizing tool. And although it started as a purely American ploy, the creationists started exporting it to bible-literalist communities in other countries, such as Australia (that's where Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis are from).Where did that initial batch of "scientific evidences" come from? Practically since the start of modern science, people have been trying to use science to explain the miracles of their religion. Their motives and goals varied, but some of them saw science as the enemy of their faith and viewed their efforts as attempting to defend their faith; "creation science" is often portrayed in that "God vs Science" vein. Between 1906 and 1923, George McCready Price developed "flood geology", laying down most of the geology arguments that creationists still use -- and he was just one of many creationist writers in the 20's. Indeed, it's amazing how many creationist arguments still being used came from the 1920's. Creationists continued their work up to the 60's, but largely ignored outside their own community.In 1961, Morris and Whitcomb wrote "The Genesis Flood" and in 1963 teamed with 9 other creationist to form the Creation Research Society, which produced more claims. Then in post-Epperson 1970, Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research, which became the principal creationist organization through the 70's and 80's and the principal producer of "balanced treatment" educational materials for public schools, as well as the principal architects of "scientific creationism" and the "two model approach" and the politics of pressuring for "balanced treatment". They had inherited a lot of material from the previous decades, but all that material was heavily religious. So to turn them into "public school editions", they made superficial changes; ie, removed Bible verses, removed overly explicit religious references, and tried to hide God with vague references to "the Creator" and the like. One of the greatest differences between science and "creation science" -- besides science being based on evidence and YECism not -- is that science is an endeavor to discover how the universe works, whereas "creation science" just tries to convince people. Of what? That science is wrong. Why work so hard at trying to convince people (including themselves) that science is wrong? Ah, that is the real question, isn't it?I didn't really realize that they're only concerned with convincing people until a discussion long ago in another forum. A creationist tried to use the sea-salt claim and we explained to him fully why it's wrong. The funny thing, though, was that, even though he was a strict YEC who believed that the earth could be no older than 10,000 years, here he was arguing that the earth was several millions of years old. I pointed that contradiction out to him and it didn't bother him a bit. He was perfectly happy with an earth that was several millions of years old, "just so long as it's not BILLIONS of years old like science says!".That's when I finally got it! They're not trying to prove creation, but rather they just want to prove science to be wrong. About anything. That's why they'll even make claims that have absolutely nothing to do with evolution or the age of the earth (eg, to role of refrigerants in depleting the ozone layer); from a strict creation/evolution perspective, that just doesn't make any sense at all, but from the perspective of proving science to be wrong it does make sense. And they don't even have to actually prove science wrong, just so long as they can cast enough doubt.Why do that? Well, if science is seen as threatening your faith, then destroy science. OK, not all of science; even the staunchest creationist loves his flush toilet too much. Just disable the parts that you think are a threat. And if you can't do that, then poke holes somewhere else just so you can reach the conclusion that those threatening parts could also be wrong, thus allowing you to pick and choose those parts of science that you want to accept, just as you do with the Bible.The other reason is that being able to cast doubt on science helps your efforts to get evolution out of the schools. That's right, they don't really want to get creationism into the schools; they just want to get evolution taken out. In the Arkansas "balanced-treatment" law, it only required the teaching of "the creation model" if evolution was being taught; if evolution wasn't being taught, then teaching "creation science" was not required.They don't understand that science creates a comprehensive world view that has to all hang together. You can't just yank out parts of it that you don't like without tearing the whole thing apart.And, of course, another reason for proving science wrong is so that their theology is based on the false belief that evolution has to be wrong and the earth has to young or else the Bible is completely false and God doesn't exist. And they must do everything and anything they can to keep that from happening.From another discussion on that other forum, I constructed the following table that compares scientists and creationists and how they work and are motivated (Help, Mod! How to I prevent that huge gap before a table?):

Science / Scientists ...	Creation Science / Creationists ...
What they are trying to do:
1a. The scientist is either trying to make a new discovery or to test or find corroborating evidence for a previous discovery, hypothesis, or theory.	1b. A creationist is normally not trying to make a new discovery, nor to test or find corroborating evidence for a previous claim. As rustyb puts so succintly in his signature, "I already know the Truth." There's little use in trying to discover something new about the "Truth" that you already know a priori, nor is there any use in testing it (which would probably be sacrilegious anyway), nor to try to add to its Completeness. Rather, what a creationist is normally trying to do is to come up with convincing claims and arguments against anything that appears to contradict "the Truth" that they already know. ​
How they measure success:
2a. The success of the scientist's efforts depends directly on the quality of his research and on the validity of the studies that he bases his research on. Therefore, a scientist is motivated to verify his sources and to maintain high standards of scholarship.	2b. It doesn't matter whether that creationist had done a proper job of researching the claim, or had even researched it at all (though it does help to make it more convincing if there's something in the bibliography, even if that source had never actually been looked at -- remember that NASA document?). It doesn't matter if the claim or argument is valid, just that it sounds convincing; after all, the creationist already "knows" that it must be true.
Scholarship
3a. Since scientists depend so much on the validity and quality of the work of other scientists, the scientific community is motivated to police itself against shoddy or falacious research.	3b. When you research some other creationist's claim, you're not depending on that claim being true or valid; you're only depending on that claim sounding convincing.
How they handle dishonesty:
4a. Thus, a scientist who is discovered to be performing substandard or dishonest work loses his credibility and his standing in the scientific community.	4b. And if a claim is discovered to be false or a creationist is discovered to practice questionable methods, none of that matters, just so long as they still sound convincing. A creationist is far more likely to face censure for theological lapses than for shoddy or questionable scholarship.
ditto
5a.	5b. Of course, if a claim starts drawing too much negative publicity, then it is no longer convincing and must be dropped, as quietly as possible, until everybody has forgotten about it, whereupon it can be resurrected and received as a "new" claim.
How they handle mistakes:
6a. Mistakes and hoaxes will still happen in science, but the near-constant scrutiny and testing will uncover them.	6b. Mistakes and hoaxes will also happen in creation science, but in this case there is no mechanism in place to uncover them; indeed, there is much resistence to uncovering creationist mistakes and hoaxes.

Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

Thanks for the history lesson, dwise. Ever since I heard of the Wedge strategy leak I have been appalled at the motives of the Creationist movement. On the surface it seems like an honest effort to provide Christians with a non-materialistic alternative to evolution.But it goes MUCH further than that. Their long-term goal:"To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies""To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God"really means the removal of evolutionary theory from academia. Why? Because it's wrong? No, because it's materialism and has "destructive moral, cultural and political legacies".Phillip E Johnson, who played a large part in drafting the wedge strategy had this to say: Mr Johnson starts with the assumption that evolution is not true. He posits that "slow creation" is not creation. (Although if we're talking speed here, God is omnipotent so he could have created it all in 6 nanoseconds. Is that more amazing?) To connect this to the OP, it seems that a Young Earth interpretation of the Bible is the driving force behind the YEC movement. Heck, the movement started even before they started calling themselves "creation scientists". They have said, as you have pointed out dwise, that a 6 day creation event is the only thing that agrees with "all of scripture". What harm is this going to cause Christians who explore the evidence and find that it doesn't match what they are preaching? I myself am a casualty here, as I've anguished over how to reconcile the fossil record with Genesis. Reality can't contradict itself. I hold the Bible to be true, but also believe that I'm in a world where things make sense, so the facts have to agree with the Bible. The only other option would be that God is cruel and intentionally planted a plethora of evidence for an ancient universe. This I can not believe.If I believed that a Young Earth is the only interpretation that the Bible permits, then I would be faced with a choice. Either I'd reject the Bible. Or I'd reject all physical evidence and go completely looney, unable to believe anything my eyes can see.So could the creationist movement be shooting itself in the foot? Could it be causing people doubt, and driving non-Christians away from God? This is a digression, but definitely worth its own thread.Johnson is further quoted as saying:
"This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy."Is he admitting that they have nothing scientific to bring to the table? Can't they debate the science without having to engage it on a philosophical level?Granted, I do not know out of what context the above quote was taken. I have a hard time believing that one of the leading "creation scientists" would make such an honest admissionEdited by Meldinoor, : Took a closer look at a quoteEdited by Meldinoor, : Shortened a quote

The question that must be asked is "Were Adam and Eve created immortal, innocent, and accountable?" No other question matters.If evolution occurred then there is no "first man and first woman, immortal, innocent, and accountable". I think we can agree that no animal created by evolution is immortal. The inability of an animal to sin is never (to my knowledge) questioned. The Bible says that Adam and Eve disobeyed God and were therefor driven from the garden. If their ape parents did the same act but were not driven from God's presence then how can the change of a few genes reconcile the unfairness of that? Our genes are significantly different than Adam and Eve's - are we more accountable or less?Only if Adam and Eve were created immortal, innocent, and accountable did the fall occur. Only because of the fall was a Savior and Redeemer necessary. A Redeemer to recover from the resulting separation from God and a Savior to recover from the resulting loss of immortality.The physical age of the earth has nothing to do with the question. However, accepting the creation and fall as fact seems lead one to accepting the Bible as fact. Accepting the Bible as fact can lead to several conclusions, one of which is YEC.

Thank you, BobAliceEve. In which passage does the Bible say they were physically immortal? On the day they sinned they would surely die, but they didn't die physically on that day.
Did Jesus redeem us from a physical death, or a spiritual death?So did Adam and Eve have to have been physically immortal? To a Christian, the main thing that separates humankind from other animals is the presence of a mysterious soul. It is thanks to this soulish character that humans are able to communicate with God, and it is presumably because of the soul that we humans are held accountable for our actions.Before God created the first human souls, our ape ancestors would therefore not have been held accountable for their actions.I don't see why YEC is a necessary conclusion to reach, even if you just look at scripture.Thank you for your input.