List of creationist arguments

From EvoWiki

The original list of Creationist arguments was compiled by Talk.Origins regular, Mark Isaak, and answers to many of the claims can already be found on the newsgroup, and on Mark's page at http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/index.html

See also: List of controversies, List of creationism topics, Category:Creationist claims

Contents 1 Philosophy and Theology 1.1 Ethics 1.2 Epistemology 1.2.1 Foundation of Knowledge 1.2.2 Theory of Science 1.3 Pedagogy 1.4 Scientific Method 1.5 Theology 2 Biology 2.1 Abiogenesis 2.2 Genetics 2.3 Molecular Biology 2.4 Physiology and Anatomy 2.5 Behavior and Cognition 2.6 Botany 2.7 Ecology and Population Biology 2.8 Developmental Biology 2.9 Systematics 2.10 Evolution 3 Paleontology 3.1 Physical Anthropology 3.1.1 Questionable fossils 3.1.2 All hominid fossils are fully human or fully ape 3.1.3 Human fossils are out of place 3.1.4 Other Anthropology 3.2 Transitional fossils 3.3 Fossil Record 3.4 Methodology 4 Geology 4.1 Geochronology 4.2 Geological Column 4.3 Sedimentation 4.4 Evaporation 4.5 Glaciation 4.6 Mountain Building 4.7 Erosion 4.8 Geophysics & Plate tectonics 4.9 Climate Change 5 Astronomy 5.1 Earth 5.2 Moon 5.3 Planets & Solar System 5.4 Sun & Stars 5.5 Cosmology 6 Physics 6.1 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and Information Theory 6.2 1st Law of Thermodynamics 6.3 Radioactive Decay 7 Miscellaneous Anti-Evolution 7.1 History 7.2 Linguistics 7.3 Folklore 7.4 Arguments based upon other scientific fields 7.5 Law 7.6 Appeals to fair play 8 Biblical Creationism 8.1 Creationism Generally 8.2 Biblical Accuracy 8.3 Young Earth Creationism 8.3.1 Age of the Universe 8.3.2 Death and the Fall 8.3.3 Flood 8.3.4 Dinosaurs 8.4 Day-Age Creationism 8.5 Geocentrism 9 Intelligent Design 9.1 ID as Science 9.2 Detecting Design 9.3 First Cause 9.4 Anthropic Principle 9.5 Meta-arguments 10 Other Creationism 10.1 Vedic Creationism

Philosophy and Theology

Ethics

• Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview
  • Crime rates etc. have increased since evolution began to be taught
• Darwin was an Atheist
• Survival of the fittest implies might makes right
  • Evolution leads to social darwinism
  • Marx admired and corresponded with Darwin
  • Darwinism encourages communism
• Evolution is racist
  • Darwin himself was racist
  • Darwin's work refers to preservation of favoured races
• Evolution encourages eugenics
  • Hitler based his views on Darwinism
• Evolution encourages promiscuity and lust
• Evolution teaches that we are animals and to behave as such
• Homosexuality receives approval from evolutionists
• Evolutionists are intellectual snobs
  • Evolutionists don't accept debate challenges
  • Scientists are pressured not to challenge established dogma
  • Creationists are prevented from publishing in science journals
  • Evolutionists haven't met Hovind's challenge to prove evolution
  • Evolutionists don't accept Walt Brown's debate challenge
• Biology can reasonably be taught without evolution
• Scientists lie if they talk about an old earth and evolution
  • There was nothing prehistoric. That word was created to brainwash us
    • People who say dinosaurs lived 145 million years ago have been brainwashed
• Evolution asserts that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment

Epistemology

Foundation of Knowledge

• Argument from incredulity
• Argument from Authority
  • Evolution will soon be widely rejected
  • Many current scientists reject evolution
  • Many scientists find problems with evolution
  • Quote-mining
    • Michael Ruse admitted that evolution is a religion
    • Darwin on evolution of the eye
    • Francis Hitching is an evolutionist
    • Hoyle and Wickramasinghe are evolutionists
  • Many famous scientists were creationists
    • Lord Kelvin was a creationist
    • Linnaeus was a creationist
• An evolved mind is fallible, its conclusions untrustworthy
• Since many details of evolution are questioned by evolutionists, one should question the whole theory

Theory of Science

• Evolution is only a theory
  • Evolution is no strictly scientific theory
• Evolution hasn't been proved
• Evolution doesn't make predictions
• Evolution can't be falsified
• Evolution is not useful
• Evolution is ambiguously defined
• Evolution can't be replicated
• Were you there?
• Creation can't be disproved
• Evolution should be treated as a matter of belief
• Interpreting evidence is not the same as observation
  • Evolutionists interpret evidence based on their preconceptions
• Ockham's Razor says simplest explanation (creation) is preferred
• Scientific findings are always changing

Pedagogy

• Fairness demands evolution and creation be given equal time
• Teach the controversy
• Teach the weaknesses
• Common Question Argument

Scientific Method

• Science is naturalistic
  • Methodological naturalism
    • Naturalistic science will miss a supernatural explanation
    • Science's method rules out design
• Scientists find what they expect to find
• Scientists are pressured not to challenge established dogma
  • Mims was fired because he was a creationist
• Scientists are motivated to support naturalism and reject creationism
  • Scientists' conclusions are motivated by money
• Many scientists are willing to bend observations to make them fit evolution
• Acceptance of evolution instead of creation has psychological rather than scientific reasons
• Creationists are prevented from publishing in science journals
• Evolutionists don't accept debate challenges
  • Evolutionists haven't met Hovind's challenge to prove evolution
  • Evolutionists don't accept Walt Brown's debate challenge
• No gradual biochemical evolution models have been published
• Survival of the fittest is a tautology
• Creationism and evolution are the only 2 models
  • Problems with evolution are evidence for creation
• There is no other working explanation besides creation
• Evolution excludes the existence of a creator
• The Origin of Species does not address speciation
• Biologists will want to throw you out of the class if you don't believe in evolution
• People will stop believing in evolution after you feed them creationist arguments
• Evolutionary explanations keep changing, while creationist accounts remain the same

Theology

• Biblical Creationism
• Evolution requires naturalism
  • Evolution's materialism or naturalism denies a role for God
• Evolution is atheistic
  • Darwin made it easy to become an intellectually fulfilled atheist
  • Scientists aim to make God unnecessary
  • Naturalistic evolution rules out all but a Deist god
• Evolution is a religion
  • Evolutionary theory has become sacrosanct
  • Evolution requires as much faith as creationism
• If man comes from random causes, life has no purpose or meaning
• Without a literal Fall, there is no need for Jesus and redemption
• Animals are not moral, esthetic, idealistic, or religious
• Do you want to be descended from a monkey?
• Death and suffering before humanity implies an unmerciful God
  • God would have pronounced death and suffering very good
  • Christ's death was unjust if physical death wasn't the penalty for sin
• Pope's statement about evolution was mistranslated
• It is not true that the church used to teach a flat earth
• The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built

Biology

Abiogenesis

• Pasteur proved life only comes from life (law of biogenesis)
• The odds of life forming are incredibly small
  • Even the simplest life is incredibly complex
  • First cells couldn't come together by chance
• DNA needs proteins to form; Proteins need DNA
• Why isn't new life still being generated today?
• Not all amino acids needed for life have been formed experimentally
• Early molecules would have decayed
  • Early molecules would have been destroyed by UV light
• Miller's experiments had invalid assumption of type of atmosphere
  • Earth's early atmosphere had abundant oxygen
• Life uses only left-handed amino acids
• Abiogenesis is speculative, without evidence
  • Abiogenesis has never been observed
  • Miller-Urey experiments were inconclusive
• Evolution is baseless without a theory of abiogenesis
• Amino acids would not polymerize
• Naturalistic mechanisms do not provide a means for making life from simple molecules
• Dawkins acknowledges that generation of a self-replicator is more than improbable
• Richard Dickerson had no explanation for generation of macromolecules
• Generation of macromolecules is one of the hardest problems evolutionists have to fight
• Mathematicians regard events with probabilities smaller than x as impossible
• Membranes are too complex to have existed during abiogenesis
• Dawkins said aliens created life on earth

Genetics

• Mutations are rare

• The chances of related mutations occurring are too low

• Most mutations are harmful
  • Mutations are accidents; things don't get built by accident
  • Mutations don't produce new features
• Mutations don't add information
  • Dawkins could not give an example of increasing information
• Microevolution selects only existing variation
• Mutations increase genetic load
• Cost of natural selection is prohibitive (Haldane's dilemma)
• Junk DNA is not really junk
• DNA is the result of intelligence because it contains readable information
• It is mathematically impossible to achieve macroevolution by mutation and natural selection
• A one percent difference in chimpanzee-human DNA is huge, given that mice and humans share 98% of their DNA
• Evolution is so improbable that it can be considered impossible

Molecular Biology

• Some systems are irreducibly complex
  • Bacterial flagella are irreducibly complex
  • Blood clotting is irreducibly complex
  • Protein transport within a cell is irreducibly complex
  • Immune system is irreducibly complex
  • Metabolic pathway for AMP synthesis is too complex to have evolved

Physiology and Anatomy

• Complex organs couldn't have evolved
  • The eye is too complex to have evolved
    • What use is half an eye?
  • The ear is too complex to have evolved
  • The brain is too complex to have evolved
  • The bombardier beetle is too complex to have evolved
    • Bombardier beetle chemicals would explode if mixed without an inhibitor
  • Butterfly metamorphosis is too complex to have evolved
    • Evolution can't explain butterfly evolving from caterpillar
  • The giraffe neck couldn't evolve without a special circulatory system
  • The woodpecker tongue couldn't have evolved
  • Organs and organ systems would be useless until all parts are in place
  • Snake venom and hollow fangs couldn't have evolved simultaneously
• Sex can't have evolved
• Vestigial organs may have functions
  • Evolutionists are changing the definition of vestigial
  • The human appendix is functional, not vestigial
  • The tail bone is not vestigial since there are nine muscles that attach to it
  • Whales' pelvis bones serve as anchor points for muscles
    • Without the pelvis whales cannot reproduce
• Vestigial organs are just evidence of decay, not evolution
• Spinal treatments based on evolutionary theory fail

Behavior and Cognition

• Evolution can't explain consciousness
  • Evolution doesn't explain human intelligence
• Instincts are too complex to have evolved
• Evolution doesn't explain language ability
• Evolution doesn't explain homosexuality
• Evolution doesn't explain morals
• Evolution doesn't explain altruism
• Evolution doesn't explain cooperation
• Evolution doesn't explain art
• Evolution doesn't explain music
• Evolution doesn't explain personality and emotions
• Evolution doesn't explain religion

Botany

• Dendrochronology is suspect because 2 or more rings can grow per year
• Evolution can't explain photosynthesis

Ecology and Population Biology

• The traditional peppered moth story is no longer supportable
  • Peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks, and pictures of them there were faked
  • Peppered moths occur in uncamouflaged colors in many areas
    • Dark moths never completely replaced light ones in Manchester
    • In several areas dark moths were more common than expected
    • Dark moths increased in south Britain after pollution control began
    • In places, light moths increased before lichens reappeared
    • Peppered moths do not usually rest on trees
  • Direct mutagenesis better explains peppered moth variation
• Microevolution selects only existing variation
• The first individual of a new species wouldn't find a mate
• Human population growth indicates a young earth
• Humanity was traced back to an African Eve

Developmental Biology

• Haeckel falsified his embryo pictures
  • Recapitulation theory is not supported
  • Haeckel's embryo drawings were proven wrong in 1874 and are still in biology books
• Human embryos don't have gill slits
• Genes with major effects on development are conserved across phyla

Systematics

• Science can't define species
• Organisms come in discrete kinds
  • Evolution predicts a continuum of organisms, not discrete kinds
• Homology can't be evidence of ancestry if it is defined thus
• Phylogenetic analyses are inconsistent
• Evolution from a single ancestor is discredited

Evolution

• Macroevolution has never been observed
  • Range of variation is limited within kinds
  • No new phyla, classes, or orders have appeared
  • Darwin's finches show only microevolution
• Small changes do not imply large changes
  • There are barriers to large change
• No entirely new features have evolved
• No new species have been observed
  • Fruit fly experiments produce only fruit flies
  • Peppered moths remained the same species
• Evolution hasn't been observed nowadays
• No new body parts have evolved
• New structures would be useless until fully developed
  • What use is half an eye?
  • What use is half a wing?
• No 2-celled life exists intermediate between one- and multi-celled
• We don't see creatures in various stages of completion
• Preadaptation implies organs evolved before they were needed
• Why aren't beneficial traits evolved more often?
  • If intelligence is adaptive, other apes should have evolved it
• Evolution doesn't explain our using 1/10th of our brain
• Some fossil species are still living
  • The coelacanth, thought extinct for ages, is still living
  • A plesiosaur was found by a Japanese trawler
  • Dinosaurs may still be alive in the Congo
• Some modern species are apparently degenerate, not higher forms
• Pure chance can't create new structures
• How do things know how to evolve?
• Over-specialization with no adaptive value sometimes occurs
• Long-term trends (orthogenesis) doesn't fit evolutionary theory
• Proposed evolution scenarios are just-so stories
• Biologists say there are six basic concepts of evolution
• Naturalistic mechanisms do not provide a means for making sufficient new genetic material to cause ascent from microscopic organisms to large life forms
• The original organism from which all others are decended has never been observed

Paleontology

Physical Anthropology

Questionable fossils

• Specific hominid fossils were hoaxed
  • Piltdown man was a hoax
    • Piltdown man was the subject of 500 doctoral dissertations
  • Nebraska man was a hoax
  • Lucy's knee was found far from the rest of the skeleton
  • Ten Peking Man skeletons were suppressed
    • Peking Man was supposedly 500,000 years old, but all evidence has disappeared
• All human fossils would fit on a billiard table
• Anthropologists disagree
  • Homo habilis is an invalid taxon
  • French scientists called Peking Man monkey-like

All hominid fossils are fully human or fully ape

• Transitional fossils between man and ape are evolutionist's only hope to find evidence for a relationship
• Neanderthals were fully human and were not a different species‎
• Evolutionists think that apes became ever fitter when climbing the evolutionary ladder
• Theory of human evolution was based on wishful thinking from the beginning
• Identity of human ancestors is lost in the past
• Neanderthal was based on a disfigured human
  • Neanderthals were humans with rickets
  • Neanderthal Man, found in France over 50 years ago, is an old man who suffered from arthritis
• Laetoli footprints were human
• KP 271 (a fossil humerus) was human
• Australopithecus was fully ape, closer to chimp
  • Most experts now agree that Lucy was only an unusual chimpanzee
  • Biologists think that Lucy is the oldest known ancestor of humans
• Heidelberg Man was built from a jaw bone that was conceded by many to be quite human
• We don't have any evidence of change since Homo sapiens first appeared as a fossil 50,000 years ago
• Pictures of apemen are based on imagination

Human fossils are out of place

• Human footprints have been found with dinosaur tracks at Paluxy
• Sandal footprints have been found associated with trilobites
• Moab man was found in Cretaceous sandstone
• Malachite man was found in Cretaceous sandstone
• Castenedolo, Olmo, and Calaveras skulls were found in Pliocene strata
• Baugh found a fossilized finger from the Cretaceous
• A petrified hammer was found in Cretaceous rocks
• Richard Leakey found a normal human skull under a layer of rock dated at 212 million years
• A 40,000 year-old skeleton found in China has raised questions about the "out of Africa" hypothesis on how early modern humans populated the planet.

Other Anthropology

• If we're descended from apes, why are there still apes around?
• One suggested ancestry line for humans is: Lucy, Heidelberg Man, Nebraska Man, Piltdown Man, Peking Man, Neanderthal Man, New Guinea Man, Cro-Magnon Man, Modern Man
• New Guinea Man dates way back to 1970 and has been found in the region just north to Australia

Transitional fossils

• The transition of Human skulls are sculptured creations which have been debunked
• Transitional fossils are lacking
  • There should be billions of transitional fossils
  • There should be transitionals among living creatures
• We should see a smooth continuum through the fossil record
  • Punctuated equilibrium was ad hoc to justify gaps
  • Punctuated equilibrium is the opposite of standard evolutionary theory
• Fossil record doesn't show transition from simple organisms to complex ones since bacteria are already complex
• Evolution requires progress through many nonfunctional intermediates
• Fossil record doesn't show progress
• Some species don't seem to evolve for millions of years
• Speciation hasn't been observed in the fossil record
• Specific examples of non-transition
  • There are gaps between invertebrate-vertebrate
  • There are gaps between fish-amphibian
  • There are gaps between amphibian-reptile
  • There are no fossil ancestors of dinosaurs
  • There are gaps between reptile-bird
    • Archaeopteryx was probably not an ancestor of modern birds
      • Archaeopteryx is fully bird
    • Protoavis disproves avian phylogenetics
  • There are gaps between reptile-mammal
    • There is no fossil evidence for transition from reptile maxilla to mammal ear bones
  • There are gaps between land mammals and whales
  • Horse fossils don't show evolution
  • There are no fossil giraffes with shorter necks
  • There are no fossil ancestors of monkeys
  • Arthropods arose suddenly
  • There are no fossil ancestors of insects
  • There are no fossil ancestors of plants
  • There are gaps between plant-animal
  • Anteater evolution is uncertain

Fossil Record

• Cambrian explosion shows all kinds of life appearing suddenly
  • Cambrian explosion contradicts evolutionary tree pattern
• Dating of fossils
  • Fossils are dated from strata; strata are dated from fossils
• The fossil record shows sudden appearance followed by stasis
• Polystrate fossils
  • Polystrate fossils indicate massive sudden deposition
    • Yellowstone's Specimen Creek fossil forests were evidently transported
      • Specimen Creek fossil trees grew at the same time
      • Orientations show Specimen Creek fossil trees were transported
    • A fossil whale was found vertically through several strata
• Some fossils are out of place
  • Recent pollen has been found in old rocks
• Some fossils are faked
  • Archaeopteryx is a fake
  • Archaeoraptor was a fake
• Taphonomy
  • No new fossils are being formed
  • Fossils can form quickly
    • Coal and oil can form quickly
    • Mammoths have been found quickly frozen
    • Contorted positions of fossil animals indicate rapid burial
  • Large collections of fossils indicate catastrophism
  • Fossilization requires sudden burial
  • Sea fossils have been found on mountaintops
  • Footprints in Coconino sandstone appear to have been made underwater
    • Coconino sandstone was deposited underwater
• The fossil record does not show evidence of reproduction

Methodology

• Paleontologists reconstruct an entire animal from a single bone

Geology

Geochronology

• Radiometric dating makes false assumptions
  • Radiometric dating falsely assumes rocks are closed systems
  • Radiometric dating falsely assumes initial conditions are known
  • Radiometric dating falsely assumes no isotopes added or removed
  • Cosmic rays and free neutrinos affect U and Ar decay rates
• Radiometric dating gives unreliable results
  • Carbon dating gives inaccurate results
    • Variable C14/C12 ratio invalidates C14 dating
    • Vollosovitch and Dima mammoths yielded inconsistent C14 dates
    • Living snails were C14 dated at 2,300 and 27,000 years old
    • A freshly killed seal was C14 dated at 1300 years old
    • Triassic wood from Australia was dated at 33K years old
    • Ancient oil is C14 dated as only 50,000 years old
  • U-Th dating gives inaccurate results for modern volcanic rocks
  • K-Ar dating gives inaccurate results for modern volcanic rocks
    • K-Ar dates of 1986 dacite from Mount St. Helens are very old
  • Isochron dating gives unreliable results
    • Isochron date of young Grand Canyon lava is excessively old
  • Zircons retain too much helium for an old earth
• Consistency of radiometric dating comes from selective reporting
• The ages of fossils are arrived at by guessing
• Biologists think that Carbon 14 proves evolution

Geological Column

• Entire geological column doesn't exist
• Geological column is sometimes out of order
  • Out-of-order strata occur at the Lewis overthrust
• Geologic column is based on the assumption of evolution
• Meteor craters are never found in deeper strata
• Meteorites are never found in deeper strata

Sedimentation

• Uniformitarian assumption is untenable
• Sandstone & shale layers are too extensive for normal deposition
• Limestone & dolomite layers are too extensive for normal deposition
• Mouth of Colorado river doesn't have enough sediments for Grand Canyon
• Mississippi delta could have formed in 5000 years
• Not enough sediments in the ocean for an old earth
  • Much more sediment is deposited than removed by subduction
• Oceans haven't enough dissolved minerals for an old earth
• Juvenile water is added to oceans too fast for an old earth
• Natural gas escapes too fast to allow for long ages
• High pressures in oil fields would have bled off if earth were old
• Oil seepage would have drained offshore reservoirs in 20,000 years
• Experiments show that strata can violate principles of superposition
• Varves can form in less than a year
• Stalactites can grow very rapidly

Evaporation

• Evaporites could form without evaporation
• Evaporites are too thick
• Evaporites contain no organic matter

Glaciation

• WWII airplanes are now beneath thousands of annual ice layers

Mountain Building

• On an old earth, mountains would have eroded by now
• Volcanic mountains are built too fast for an old earth
• Folded rocks must have been soft when folded

Erosion

• Erosion rate of Niagara Falls' rim indicates young earth
• Average soil depth is consistent with young earth

Geophysics & Plate tectonics

• Earth's magnetic field is decaying, indicating a young earth
  • Cowling's theorem disproves dynamo theory of earth's magnetic field

Climate Change

• Sahara Desert is expanding

Astronomy

Earth

• Not enough helium in the atmosphere for an old earth
• NASA scientists found a day missing
• Earth's rotation is slowing, indicating a young earth
  • The frequency of leap seconds indicates a young earth
• An old earth would be covered by 182' of meteoric dust
• The Anthropic Principle: Earth is perfectly in the habitable zone, proving design

Moon

• Not enough moon dust for an old universe
• Moon is receding at a rate too fast for an old universe
• Lunar moonquakes, lava flows, and gas emissions indicates its youth
• Lunar craters must be young due to lunar rock viscosity

Planets & Solar System

• Speed of light is fine-tuned to permit life‎
• Venus' high temp and atmosphere should have eroded its surface features
• Io's great volcanic activity indicates a young age
• Jupiter and Saturn are cooling too rapidly to be old
• Saturn's rings are unstable
• 3 planets and several moons revolve backwards
  • Retrograde motion of planets disproves the Big Bang
• Comets wouldn't have lasted in an old universe
  • Oort cloud and Kuiper belt are ad-hoc fantasies of astronomers
  • Oort cloud and Kuiper belt should be empty from perturbations at each spiral arm crossing
• Solar wind should have cleared inner solar system of microparticles
• Poynting-Robertson effect would remove space dust in an old solar system

Sun & Stars

• Lack of solar neutrinos indicates stellar model is wrong
• Shrinking sun indicates a young sun
  • Helmholtz's contraction theory says the sun is young
• The faint young sun paradox contradicts an old earth
• Sirius was a red star 2000 years ago and is a white dwarf now
• Galaxies should lose their spiral shape over millions of years
• Stars and galaxies are unchanging
• Formation of heavier elements has never been observed
• Formation of stars and planets from gas has never been observed

Cosmology

• There are too few supernova remnants for an old universe
• Physical constants are only assumed constant
  • Speed of light has changed
    • Physicists found that the speed of light was once faster
  • Gravitational time dilation made distant clocks run faster
• Cosmos has an axis, contrary to Big Bang models
• Red shift comes from light aging, not expansion of the universe
• Where did space, time, energy, and laws of physics come from?
• Explosions such as the Big Bang don't produce order or information
• Big Bang has never been observed

Physics

2nd Law of Thermodynamics and Information Theory

• 2nd law of thermodynamics prohibits evolution
  • Systems left to themselves invariably tend towards disorder
  • The 2nd law, and the trend to disorder, is universal
  • Instructions are necessary to produce order
  • The 2nd law is about organized complexity, not entropy
  • Evolution needs an energy conversion mechanism to utilize energy
• Complexity doesn't come from simplicity
  • Tornadoes in junkyards don't build things
• How could information, such as in DNA, assemble itself?
• 2nd law of thermodynamics applies to information theory
• Cybernetic simulations show Darwinian processes don't produce order
• Evolutionary algorithms smuggle in design in the fitness function
  • The outcome of Dawkins' WEASEL program was prespecified
• Gluons don't exist since no one has seen them, so it must be God who holds the nucleus together

1st Law of Thermodynamics

• The universe can't come from nothing

Radioactive Decay

• Carbon-14 in Coal Deposits indicates a young earth
• Polonium haloes indicate a young earth
• Radiometric dating falsely assumes rates are constant
• Short-lived isotopes Th-230 and U-236 exist on the moon

Miscellaneous Anti-Evolution

History

• Darwin recanted on his death bed
• The oldest living thing is younger than 4900 years
• 3000 years is time enough for all languages, religions to develop
• Oldest structures, such as pyramids, are already very complex

Linguistics

• Chinese glyph for ark is literally 8 mouths
• First known languages are highly complex
• Why are languages getting less complex?

Folklore

• There are flood myths from all over the world
• Babylonian creation myth does not resemble Genesis account

Arguments based upon other scientific fields

• Evolutionary theory in computer science has been unsuccessful

Law

• Federal law (Santorum Amendment) supports teaching alternatives
• It has never been against the law to teach the Bible or creation in public schools
• Biologists will want to have you jailed for mentioning Bible or creation in public schools
• Nebraska man was presented as significant evidence in the Scopes trial
• Piltdown man was presented as significant evidence in the Scopes trial

Appeals to fair play

• It is arrogant not to teach creationism
  • Evolutionists are intellectual snobs
  • Biologists will want to have you jailed for mentioning Bible or creation in public schools
  • Fairness demands evolution and creation be given equal time
  • Teach the controversy
  • Teach the weaknesses

Biblical Creationism

Creationism Generally

• Creationism has explanatory power
• Creationism, being Bible-based, is good
  • Learning creationism stimulates mental health, joy, and morals
• Genesis is foundational to the Bible
• Non-creationist Christians are compromisers
• Creation can't be disproved

Biblical Accuracy

• The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it
• The Bible is inerrant
  • If part of the Bible is wrong, none of it can be trusted
• The Bible is literal
  • Genesis must be literal; it is straighforward narrative
  • Genesis must be literal; later writers refer to it as fact
    • Jesus refers to creation and flood as though they were literal
• Bible claims inspiration
• Prophecies prove the accuracy of the Bible
• The Bible must be accurate because archaeology supports it
• Bible's accuracy on other scientific points shows overall accuracy
  • Bible says the earth is round
  • Bible says the earth is unsupported
  • Bible got water cycle right
  • Records say civilization was man's original state
  • Bible specifies good medical and hygienic practices
    • Bible specifies best time for circumcision
    • Moses reveals that blood is the essence of life
• Bible is unique in other ways
  • Bible is popular
  • Bible is influential
  • Bible is target of persecution
  • Bible is intellectually honest
• Bible is harmonious throughout

Young Earth Creationism

Age of the Universe

• The universe is 6000-10000 years old
• The earth is 6000-10000 years old
• The universe was created with apparent age
• Humans are a few thousand years old, not millions

Death and the Fall

• There was no death or decay before the Fall
  • Animals ate plants before the Fall
• Pre-flood vapor canopy would have made world Edenic
• Pre-flood vapor canopy would have extended human lifetimes
• It never rained before the flood
• Life is deteriorating
  • Parasites are degenerations of free-living species

Flood

• Source of Flood
  • Vapor canopy
  • Flood from comet
  • Hydroplate theory
  • Runaway subduction
  </