A favorite creationist mantra these days, and one you especially hear from young earthers, is that creationists and scientists both have the same facts, they just look at them differently. To laypeople that may sound reasonable. The handful of guys at Answers in Genesis look at the Grand Canyon and say it was formed by a flood about 4400 years ago when God got all pissed off at humans. The 24,000 members of the Geological Society of America (and virtually every member of the literally dozens of geological organizations listed at geology.com/societies.htm*) look at the Grand Canyon and say it was formed over millions of years by natural processes that continue today.
Same facts; different conclusions. Some of us laypeople often hear these two positions and see them as equally valid positions on either side of a debate. But some of us scratch the surface, and it doesn’t take a very deep scratch to see a significant difference. Scientists do science and creationists don’t.
Read the rest in the Toolbox.
Thanks for your interesting article about what scientists do and creationists don’t, Skip.
I forwarded a brief quote from it to concrete-minded acquaintances of mine – three of them attached to Creation Ministries International – and told them that your article presents a challenge to creationism that is not only a knockout but hits creationism right out of the ring.
You challenged Answers in Genesis prophet-in-chief Ken Ham to build an experimental Ark and stock it with animals and float it. Well, some time ago I saw an e mail about a chap in Holland who actually did build an ark and floated it – on a quiet bywater, not at sea, and moreover it is reinforced with steel struts, to judge from the photos. I regret not being able to provide a reference but I suspect you will be able to google it easily enough.
Have fun
Louis
Hey Louis,
Thanks for the comments about the post. I venture into the waters blogging about creationism with no small degree of trepidation. I imagine if it gets any traffic at all it won’t be long before creos are posting nonsensical rants full of large cut and pastes and tons of links and “Oh, yeah? Waht about this!” kind of stuff.
I think this is the one you’re talking about: http://www.arkvannoach.com/cms/en. It’s not as big as the ark was supposed to have been, and yeah, it’s been built with modern techniques and materials and also won’t float all the species Noah supposedly had on board. I imagine he couldn’t find a big enough shovel.
Thanks for the link. My home language (Afrikaans) is, like modern Dutch, a derivative of seventeenth-century Dutch, and I am intrigued to spot minor mistakes in the English that are typically made by Dutch and Afrikaans folk. If you won’t mind, I don’t think I shall bother visiting this chap’s ark. A South African theologian commented that building an ark is equivalent to looking for the cage that Hanzel and Gretel were put into!
I definitely don’t mind if you don’t visit the guy’s ark site. It is rather silly and I have no objection to the view it’s a waste of time. I didn’t spend much time on it myself. Enough to get the link was ‘enough’.