Young Earth Creationism, sometimes abbreviated YEC,[1] is a form of creationism which holds that the earth and the universe are approximately 6,000 years old.[2][3]
Young earth creationists hold that both creation and the evolutionary position are at root tied to worldviews, and because they are both claims about historical (or prehistorical) events, they depend on untestable assumptions. At the same time, young earth creation scientists argue that the young universe view is the explanation that best fits the evidence.
Scientists who advocate an old earth regard young earth creationism as being unscientific. But the predominantly atheistic scientists rely on a double standard that ignores numerous counterexamples to an Old Earth, and the believers in an Old Earth also over-rely on flawed radiometric dating.
Young Earth creationism generally takes the following positions regarding the biblical book of Genesis:
Young Earth creationists do not believe that one's view on the age of the Earth has any effect on their salvation, since one is saved through faith alone in Christ alone, but they do believe that the young Earth view does allow one to view the Bible and its authority consistently.[7]
Young earth creationism holds that the scientific evidence is unreasonably interpreted by evolutionists and atheists/naturalists as supporting their point of view, but that the same evidence can be reasonably interpreted by creationists to support the creationary point of view. This imposes a heavy burden on the testability of both theories, which is one of the reasons why some scientists question whether either the creationary or evolutionary view is scientific.
They further argue that the scientific evidence is more consistent with the creationary point of view than the evolutionary point of view.
Critics argue, however, that none of the YEC beliefs are subject to the scientific method, but the same criticism applies to theories promoted by evolutionists. The scientific method includes the process of making predictions based on your starting hypothesis and then performing experiments to verify those predictions, all in a manner that can be reproduced and validated by a peer review process.
Some specific arguments are as follows:
Young earth creationism holds that the book of Genesis is historical in nature and that Bible exegesis warrants a six-day creation with each day being 24 hours.[16][17][18] Andrew Kulikovsky describes it as follows:
The hermeneutic employed by most YECs is best described as the historical-grammatical method in which historical narrative (such as the book of Genesis) is interpreted as literal history, prophecy is interpreted as prophecy, poetry is interpreted as poetry, etc. [19]
Historical-grammatical exegesis involves a systematic approach to analyzing in detail the historical situation, events and circumstances surrounding the text, and the semantics and syntactical relationships of the words which comprise the text.[20]
For more than a century, the majority of conservative Old Testament scholars no longer accepted the chronological implications of the Genesis "chrono-genealogies" following the accommodation of the old Princeton Theology (“Primeval Chronology,” Bibliotheca Sacra 47 (1890): 285-303). However, Jeremy Sexton reexamined this hypothesis in 2015 [21] starting the process of returning Old Testament Scholarship to the consensus that held sway since before the coming of Christ (Earth age opinions of prominent Christians - pre-1800).
Young earth creation scientists advance a number of reasons for the earth and universe being approximately 6,000 years old.[22][23][23][24][25][26] They argue that the evolutionary geological timescale is in error,[27][28][29] and that geology further provides multiple lines of evidence that the earth is young.[30][31][32][33] Rejecting the uniformitarian assumptions of secular geologists, they use a geological system that depends more on catastrophism[34] and point out that catastrophism is being increasingly accepted in the field of geology.[35][36]
The young earth creationism view is that the various astronomical bodies such as planets, stars, and galaxies were supernaturally created and that materialistic explanations of the origins of various astronomical bodies are insufficient and counter evidence.[37] In addition, creationists often cite the secular scientific literature in order to make the case that materialist explanations of various astronomical bodies are inadequate:
“ | ...most every prediction by theorists about planetary formation has been wrong.[38] | ” |
“ | Attempts to find a plausible naturalistic explanation of the origin of the Solar System began about 350 years ago but have not yet been quantitatively successful, making this one of the oldest unsolved problems in modern science.[39] | ” |
“ | We don’t understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form.[40] | ” |
“ | We cannot even show convincingly how galaxies, stars, planets, and life arose in the present universe.[41] | ” |
In 2001, Cristina Chiappini wrote regarding the Milky Way galaxy the following:
Dr. Walt Brown provides numerous citations to the secular science literature that corroborate the failings of current old universe paradigm explanations in regards to the planets, stars, and galaxies.[43][44][45]
The Institute for Creation Research has a notable essay by David Coppedge entitled "Mature at Birth: Universe Discredits Evolution" which cites recent findings which challenge an old universe paradigm.[46] In addition, Henry Morris has an essay regarding the subject of the failings of the old universe paradigm entitled "What Astronomers Don't Know".[42]
Young earth creationist scientists also contest the Big Bang theory stating that it is scientifically unsound. [47] [48][49][50][51]
For a more detailed treatment, see Starlight problem.
Anti-creationists often claim that starlight from millions of light years away demonstrates that the Biblical timescale of 6,000 years is in error, as insufficient time has passed for the light from distant stars to reach Earth. Creationists respond in part by pointing out that the popular Big Bang theory has its own star light-travel time problem (the horizon problem), citing the work of Dr. Charles W. Misner.[52]
Secondly, creationists have proposed a number of explanations for the objection, and although none are yet certain, they claim that it shows that the critics' claims that it cannot be explained are unfounded.
One early explanation was that of creationist Barry Setterfield, who proposed that the speed of light was faster in the past.[53] Critics objected to Setterfield's proposal, including on the grounds that the constancy of the speed of light is one of science's most fundamental laws.[54] Yet in 1999, John Webb, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues reported astronomical observations suggesting that the value of the fine-structure constant (which is related to the speed of light) may have changed (although the size of the change was much smaller than proposed by Setterfield). They subsequently published this in 2001 in Physical Review Letters.[54][55] However, other problems with the proposal has led most creationists to abandon the idea.[56]
Creationary physicist Dr. Russell Humphreys proposed a model based on Einstein's law of relativity (as the Big Bang model is), but with a different starting assumption, a bounded universe. Humphreys's model proposes that God created the universe much smaller than it is now, then expanded it, quoting the Bible saying that God "stretched out the heavens". In such a scenario, time would pass at different rates on Earth and in outer parts of the universe, so that while 6,000 years went by on Earth, billions of years passed on the outer edge of the universe. This model is also based on the Genesis account recording the days of creation according to time on Earth, rather than elsewhere.
However, this theory is not without problems. The evidence contradicts Humphrey's assumption that the earth is in a large gravity well. If the earth were in such a gravity well, light from distant galaxies should be blue-shifted. Instead, it is red-shifted. Also, gravitational time dilation, if it existed on such a large scale, should be easily observable. On the contrary, we observe (from the periods of Cepheid variable stars, from orbital rates of binary stars, from supernova extinction rates, from light frequencies, etc.) that such time dilation is minor. It is thought that there is some time dilation corresponding with Hubble's law (i.e., further objects have greater red shifts), but this is due to the well-understood expansion of the universe, and it is not nearly extreme enough to fit more than ten billion years into less than 10,000.[57]
Young earth creationist scientist Dr. John Hartnett proposes a model similar to Humphreys, wherein the Earth was trapped in a time-dilation field caused by extremely strong gravitation during the first few days of creation, from Earth's point of view, while billions of years passed for the rest of the universe. He attributes the field, its removal and the continued balance in our solar system (after the field was removed) to divine intervention.[58] Whilst Humphreys' model has time dilation caused only by gravity (per Einstein's General Theory of Relativity), Hartnett's model also takes into account time dilation caused by motion (God's expansion of the universe) (per Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity).
According to young-Earth creationists, God separately created each kind of living thing, or baramin, to reproduce "after its kind". Living things had built into them a capacity for variation and adaptation, but within the limits of their kind. Genetically, in the case of sexually-reproducing species, much of this is due to the information carried on each living thing's DNA being a subset of the parent's DNA, with the subset of information being selected for by the process known as natural selection (described by a creationist before Darwin wrote about it). Mutations also play a part in this variation, but only to the extent of destroying genetic information, not creating it.
Many of the ensuing variations have been classified by science as different species, but this speciation is not evolution, as it does not involve the generation of new genetic information and therefore could not have produced the evolutionary "family tree".
YECs believe that most of the world's living things were wiped out by the Great Flood, but that pairs of each kind that could not survive in a flood (i.e. air-breathing, land-dwelling creatures) survived the flood on Noah's Ark, and from the Flood survivors all modern species have descended.
YECs believe that most rocks were laid down in two main episodes. The first was during the creation week, particularly when God caused the waters of the Earth to gather together into the sea and dry land to appear. The second was during Noah's Flood. The effects of a global watery catastrophe would have been enormous, which would form massive amounts of erosion and sedimentation during a short period of time. Further, many young-Earth creationists believe that there was a single supercontinent prior to the Flood. This single land mass broke apart during the Flood when the subterranean waters bursted out of the subterranean chambers causing the earth to break apart (see also: Hydroplate Theory). According to many Young earth creationists, there were probably fewer oceans with much more land on the earth prior to the flood. It is believed that the worldwide water quantity increased after the flood. The sea trenches and ocean floors sunk further down after the flood waters subsided, because of the increased pressure of the water, thus causing the sea levels to rise.[59][60][61] Young earth creationists also believe that many of the mountains, valleys, and lakes we see today were formed by the geological transformations caused by the flood. This would have further contributed to a massive reshaping of the Earth's surface.
For a more detailed treatment, see Biblical anthropology.
YECs believe that all intact evidence of civilisation is evidence of post-flood civilisation, as the Flood destroyed the pre-flood world. God confounded man's single language at the Tower of Babel, forcing different family groups to separate and spread around the world. Most of the people groups listed in the 'Table of Nations' in Genesis 10 , which contains a family tree of Noah's descendants, are identifiable from non-biblical records. People enduring a forced migration will find any shelter they can, and this would explain much of the evidence of "cavemen".
The young earth creationism view contrasts with evolution and other aspects of the old universe view in the following ways:
Against the Young Earth Creationist attacks on "evolutionism" and "Darwinism", critics argue that every challenge to evolution by YECs is either made in an unscientific fashion, or is readily explainable by science, and that while a gap in scientific knowledge may exist now it is likely to be closed through further research. While scientists acknowledge that there are indeed a number of gaps in the scientific theory, they generally reject the creationist viewpoint that these gaps represent fatal, insurmountable flaws with evolution. Those working in the field who pointed out the gaps in the first place have often explicitly rejected the creationist interpretation. The "God of the gaps" viewpoint has also been criticized by theologians and philosophers,[64] although creationists claim that their models are based on what is known, not on gaps in knowledge.[Citation Needed]
Christian YECs adhere strongly to the concept of biblical inerrancy, which declares the Bible to be divinely inspired and therefore scientifically infallible and non-correctable. This position is considered by devotees and critics alike to be incompatible with the principles of scientific Objectivity. The Young Earth creationist organizations Answers in Genesis (AiG) and Institute for Creation Research (ICR) require all members to pledge support for biblical inerrancy.
YECs often suggest that supporters of evolution theory are primarily motivated by atheism. Critics reject this claim by pointing out that many supporters of evolutionary theory are in fact religious believers, and that major religious groups such as the Roman Catholic Church and Church of England believe that the concept of biological evolution does not imply a rejection of the scriptures. Nor do they support the specific doctrines of biblical inerrancy proposed by YEC. Critics also point out that workers in fields related to evolutionary biology are not required to sign statements of belief in evolution comparable to the biblical inerrancy pledges required by ICR and AiG. This is contrary to the popular belief of creationists that scientists operate on an a priori disbelief in biblical principles.[65] They also discount Christian faith positions, like those of French Jesuit priest, geologist and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who saw that his work with evolutionary sciences actually confirmed and inspired his faith in the cosmic Christ. Nor do they believe the views of Catholic priest Fr. Thomas Berry, a cultural historian and eco-theologian, that the cosmological 13 billion year "Universe Story" provides all faiths and all traditions a single account by which the divine has made its presence in the world.
Proponents of YEC are regularly accused of quote mining, the practice of isolating passages from academic texts that appear to support their claims while deliberately excluding context and conclusions to the contrary.[66]
Some theologians oppose the proposition that God can be a legitimate or viable subject for scientific experimentation, and reject a literal interpretation of Genesis. They propose there are statements in the creation week itself which render the historical interpretation of Genesis incompatible with scientific evidence.
One example is that God created the Earth and heavens, and light, on Day 1, plant life on Day 3, and the sun and moon on Day 4. One must ask where the light in Day 1 came from, and why there were plants in Day 3 if the sun, which provides all light to the Earth, did not even exist until Day 4.[67] YECs such as Basil the Great and John Calvin answered this by suggesting that the light created by God on Day 1 was the light source. Answers in Genesis has refined this by suggesting that the Earth was already rotating with respect to this light.[68] One can also make a case that God created the plants toward the evening of Day 3, the Sun was created on the morning of Day 4, therefore the plants only had to endure darkness for a period not much longer than a typical night.
Another problem is the fact that distant galaxies can be seen. If the universe did not exist until 10,000 years ago, then light from anything farther than 10,000 light-years would not have time to reach us. Most cosmologists accept an inflation model as the likely explanation for the horizon problem. Inflationary models also account for other phenomena, and are in agreement with observations of recent microwave anisotropy satellites. Creationists have also proposed models to explain why we see distant starlight.[69][70] See creationist cosmologies and the starlight problem for more information.
Many critics claim that Genesis itself is internally inconsistent on the question of whether man was created before the animals or after the animals as stated in Genesis. Proponents of the Documentary hypothesis suggest that Genesis 1 was a litany from the Priestly source (possibly from an early Jewish liturgy) while Genesis 2 was assembled from older Jahwist material, holding that for both stories to be a single account, Adam would have named all the animals, and God would have created Eve from his rib as a suitable mate, all within a single 24 hour period. Many creationists attribute this view to misunderstanding having arisen from poor translation of the tenses in Genesis 2 in contemporary translations of the Bible (e.g. compare "planted" and "had planted" in KJV and NIV).[71] Some Christians assert that the Bible is free from error only in religious and moral matters, and that where scientific questions are concerned, the Bible should not be read literally. This position is held by a number of major denominations. For instance, in a publication entitled The Gift of Scripture,[72] the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales comments that "We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision". The Bible is held to be true in passages relating to human salvation, but "We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters."[73] By contrast, YECs contend that moral and spiritual matters in the Bible are intimately connected with its historical accuracy; in their view, the Bible stands or falls as a single indivisible block of knowledge.[74]
Aside from the theological doubts voiced by other Christians, YEC also stands in opposition to the creation mythologies of other religions (both extant and extinct). Many of these make claims regarding the origin of the universe and humanity that are completely incompatible with those of Christian creationists (and with one another).[75]
Young Earth creationist responses to criticisms from atheistic evolutionists, theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, and others include the following:
For a more detailed treatment, see Arguments for a recent creation.
Many arguments for a recent creation have been put forward by creationary scientists, both scientific and theological arguments.
Scientific arguments include radiometric dating results that disagree with secular ages, other dating methods that do not fit with secular ages, and phenomenon showing events that occurred quickly.
There should be virtually no 14C present in carbon supposedly older than 100,000 years, yet it has proved impossible to find any such carbon without 14C.
Dating methods don't have to be based on radioactivity. Measuring the amount of sodium in sea water, for example, and calculating how long it would take to reach those levels is another method. Yet calculations show that the amount of sodium could not have taken longer than 62 million years to accumulate, well short of the 3,000 million year supposed age of the oceans.
Polystrate fossils demonstrate that many layers of sedimentary rock that are normally supposed to take a long time to form can be formed quite quickly.
Young Earth Creationism is a subset of Creationism most commonly found among members of the Abrahamic religions, especially Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (for details please see: Creationism). In regards to early Judaism and early Christianity, early Judaism supported young earth creationism and a majority of the early church fathers held the young earth creationist view.[78]
According to Gallup, young Earth creationism had a clear plurality of adherents in the United States until 2017, and even then it still comprised a large minority of the U.S. population.[79]
Some of the more notable young earth creationist organizations include: Answers in Genesis (America and the United Kingdom), Creation Ministries International (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.A., and United Kingdom), Institute for Creation Research (U.S.A.), Creation Research Society (U.S.A.), and NorthWest Creation Network (Washington state, U.S.A.) which founded CreationWiki.
Creation Ministries International publishes a 56-page color magazine, Creation magazine, with no paid advertising, which is distributed to 140 countries.[80]
The Institute for Creation Research publishes a free monthly magazine, Acts & Facts, which includes news of the organization and articles.
Answers in Genesis, which previously distributed Creation, began their own magazine, Answers, in 2006. It contains advertising and its target audience is primarily American.[81]
The Creation Research Society Quarterly is published quarterly by the Creation Research Society,[82] and the Journal of Creation is published three times a year by Creation Ministries International.[83]
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History and young earth creation:
Young earth creation websites:
Articles focusing on arguments for a young earth:
Videos and movies focusing on arguments for a young earth:
Profiles of important young earth biblical creation scientists:
Young Earth Creationism, sometimes abbreviated YEC,[1] is a form of creationism which holds that the earth and the universe are approximately 6,000 years old.[2][3]
Young earth creationists hold that both creation and the evolutionary position are at root tied to worldviews, and because they are both claims about historical (or prehistorical) events, they depend on untestable assumptions. At the same time, young earth creation scientists argue that the young universe view is the explanation that best fits the evidence.
Scientists who advocate an old earth regard young earth creationism as being unscientific. But the predominantly atheistic scientists rely on a double standard that ignores numerous counterexamples to an Old Earth, and the believers in an Old Earth also over-rely on flawed radiometric dating.
Young Earth creationism generally takes the following positions regarding the biblical book of Genesis:
Young Earth creationists do not believe that one's view on the age of the Earth has any effect on their salvation, since one is saved through faith alone in Christ alone, but they do believe that the young Earth view does allow one to view the Bible and its authority consistently.[7]
Young earth creationism holds that the scientific evidence is unreasonably interpreted by evolutionists and atheists/naturalists as supporting their point of view, but that the same evidence can be reasonably interpreted by creationists to support the creationary point of view. This imposes a heavy burden on the testability of both theories, which is one of the reasons why some scientists question whether either the creationary or evolutionary view is scientific.
They further argue that the scientific evidence is more consistent with the creationary point of view than the evolutionary point of view.
Critics argue, however, that none of the YEC beliefs are subject to the scientific method, but the same criticism applies to theories promoted by evolutionists. The scientific method includes the process of making predictions based on your starting hypothesis and then performing experiments to verify those predictions, all in a manner that can be reproduced and validated by a peer review process.
Some specific arguments are as follows:
Young earth creationism holds that the book of Genesis is historical in nature and that Bible exegesis warrants a six-day creation with each day being 24 hours.[16][17][18] Andrew Kulikovsky describes it as follows:
The hermeneutic employed by most YECs is best described as the historical-grammatical method in which historical narrative (such as the book of Genesis) is interpreted as literal history, prophecy is interpreted as prophecy, poetry is interpreted as poetry, etc. [19]
Historical-grammatical exegesis involves a systematic approach to analyzing in detail the historical situation, events and circumstances surrounding the text, and the semantics and syntactical relationships of the words which comprise the text.[20]
For more than a century, the majority of conservative Old Testament scholars no longer accepted the chronological implications of the Genesis "chrono-genealogies" following the accommodation of the old Princeton Theology (“Primeval Chronology,” Bibliotheca Sacra 47 (1890): 285-303). However, Jeremy Sexton reexamined this hypothesis in 2015 [21] starting the process of returning Old Testament Scholarship to the consensus that held sway since before the coming of Christ (Earth age opinions of prominent Christians - pre-1800).
Young earth creation scientists advance a number of reasons for the earth and universe being approximately 6,000 years old.[22][23][23][24][25][26] They argue that the evolutionary geological timescale is in error,[27][28][29] and that geology further provides multiple lines of evidence that the earth is young.[30][31][32][33] Rejecting the uniformitarian assumptions of secular geologists, they use a geological system that depends more on catastrophism[34] and point out that catastrophism is being increasingly accepted in the field of geology.[35][36]
The young earth creationism view is that the various astronomical bodies such as planets, stars, and galaxies were supernaturally created and that materialistic explanations of the origins of various astronomical bodies are insufficient and counter evidence.[37] In addition, creationists often cite the secular scientific literature in order to make the case that materialist explanations of various astronomical bodies are inadequate:
“ | ...most every prediction by theorists about planetary formation has been wrong.[38] | ” |
“ | Attempts to find a plausible naturalistic explanation of the origin of the Solar System began about 350 years ago but have not yet been quantitatively successful, making this one of the oldest unsolved problems in modern science.[39] | ” |
“ | We don’t understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form.[40] | ” |
“ | We cannot even show convincingly how galaxies, stars, planets, and life arose in the present universe.[41] | ” |
In 2001, Cristina Chiappini wrote regarding the Milky Way galaxy the following:
Dr. Walt Brown provides numerous citations to the secular science literature that corroborate the failings of current old universe paradigm explanations in regards to the planets, stars, and galaxies.[43][44][45]
The Institute for Creation Research has a notable essay by David Coppedge entitled "Mature at Birth: Universe Discredits Evolution" which cites recent findings which challenge an old universe paradigm.[46] In addition, Henry Morris has an essay regarding the subject of the failings of the old universe paradigm entitled "What Astronomers Don't Know".[42]
Young earth creationist scientists also contest the Big Bang theory stating that it is scientifically unsound. [47] [48][49][50][51]
For a more detailed treatment, see Starlight problem.
Anti-creationists often claim that starlight from millions of light years away demonstrates that the Biblical timescale of 6,000 years is in error, as insufficient time has passed for the light from distant stars to reach Earth. Creationists respond in part by pointing out that the popular Big Bang theory has its own star light-travel time problem (the horizon problem), citing the work of Dr. Charles W. Misner.[52]
Secondly, creationists have proposed a number of explanations for the objection, and although none are yet certain, they claim that it shows that the critics' claims that it cannot be explained are unfounded.
One early explanation was that of creationist Barry Setterfield, who proposed that the speed of light was faster in the past.[53] Critics objected to Setterfield's proposal, including on the grounds that the constancy of the speed of light is one of science's most fundamental laws.[54] Yet in 1999, John Webb, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues reported astronomical observations suggesting that the value of the fine-structure constant (which is related to the speed of light) may have changed (although the size of the change was much smaller than proposed by Setterfield). They subsequently published this in 2001 in Physical Review Letters.[54][55] However, other problems with the proposal has led most creationists to abandon the idea.[56]
Creationary physicist Dr. Russell Humphreys proposed a model based on Einstein's law of relativity (as the Big Bang model is), but with a different starting assumption, a bounded universe. Humphreys's model proposes that God created the universe much smaller than it is now, then expanded it, quoting the Bible saying that God "stretched out the heavens". In such a scenario, time would pass at different rates on Earth and in outer parts of the universe, so that while 6,000 years went by on Earth, billions of years passed on the outer edge of the universe. This model is also based on the Genesis account recording the days of creation according to time on Earth, rather than elsewhere.
However, this theory is not without problems. The evidence contradicts Humphrey's assumption that the earth is in a large gravity well. If the earth were in such a gravity well, light from distant galaxies should be blue-shifted. Instead, it is red-shifted. Also, gravitational time dilation, if it existed on such a large scale, should be easily observable. On the contrary, we observe (from the periods of Cepheid variable stars, from orbital rates of binary stars, from supernova extinction rates, from light frequencies, etc.) that such time dilation is minor. It is thought that there is some time dilation corresponding with Hubble's law (i.e., further objects have greater red shifts), but this is due to the well-understood expansion of the universe, and it is not nearly extreme enough to fit more than ten billion years into less than 10,000.[57]
Young earth creationist scientist Dr. John Hartnett proposes a model similar to Humphreys, wherein the Earth was trapped in a time-dilation field caused by extremely strong gravitation during the first few days of creation, from Earth's point of view, while billions of years passed for the rest of the universe. He attributes the field, its removal and the continued balance in our solar system (after the field was removed) to divine intervention.[58] Whilst Humphreys' model has time dilation caused only by gravity (per Einstein's General Theory of Relativity), Hartnett's model also takes into account time dilation caused by motion (God's expansion of the universe) (per Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity).
According to young-Earth creationists, God separately created each kind of living thing, or baramin, to reproduce "after its kind". Living things had built into them a capacity for variation and adaptation, but within the limits of their kind. Genetically, in the case of sexually-reproducing species, much of this is due to the information carried on each living thing's DNA being a subset of the parent's DNA, with the subset of information being selected for by the process known as natural selection (described by a creationist before Darwin wrote about it). Mutations also play a part in this variation, but only to the extent of destroying genetic information, not creating it.
Many of the ensuing variations have been classified by science as different species, but this speciation is not evolution, as it does not involve the generation of new genetic information and therefore could not have produced the evolutionary "family tree".
YECs believe that most of the world's living things were wiped out by the Great Flood, but that pairs of each kind that could not survive in a flood (i.e. air-breathing, land-dwelling creatures) survived the flood on Noah's Ark, and from the Flood survivors all modern species have descended.
YECs believe that most rocks were laid down in two main episodes. The first was during the creation week, particularly when God caused the waters of the Earth to gather together into the sea and dry land to appear. The second was during Noah's Flood. The effects of a global watery catastrophe would have been enormous, which would form massive amounts of erosion and sedimentation during a short period of time. Further, many young-Earth creationists believe that there was a single supercontinent prior to the Flood. This single land mass broke apart during the Flood when the subterranean waters bursted out of the subterranean chambers causing the earth to break apart (see also: Hydroplate Theory). According to many Young earth creationists, there were probably fewer oceans with much more land on the earth prior to the flood. It is believed that the worldwide water quantity increased after the flood. The sea trenches and ocean floors sunk further down after the flood waters subsided, because of the increased pressure of the water, thus causing the sea levels to rise.[59][60][61] Young earth creationists also believe that many of the mountains, valleys, and lakes we see today were formed by the geological transformations caused by the flood. This would have further contributed to a massive reshaping of the Earth's surface.
For a more detailed treatment, see Biblical anthropology.
YECs believe that all intact evidence of civilisation is evidence of post-flood civilisation, as the Flood destroyed the pre-flood world. God confounded man's single language at the Tower of Babel, forcing different family groups to separate and spread around the world. Most of the people groups listed in the 'Table of Nations' in Genesis 10 , which contains a family tree of Noah's descendants, are identifiable from non-biblical records. People enduring a forced migration will find any shelter they can, and this would explain much of the evidence of "cavemen".
The young earth creationism view contrasts with evolution and other aspects of the old universe view in the following ways:
Against the Young Earth Creationist attacks on "evolutionism" and "Darwinism", critics argue that every challenge to evolution by YECs is either made in an unscientific fashion, or is readily explainable by science, and that while a gap in scientific knowledge may exist now it is likely to be closed through further research. While scientists acknowledge that there are indeed a number of gaps in the scientific theory, they generally reject the creationist viewpoint that these gaps represent fatal, insurmountable flaws with evolution. Those working in the field who pointed out the gaps in the first place have often explicitly rejected the creationist interpretation. The "God of the gaps" viewpoint has also been criticized by theologians and philosophers,[64] although creationists claim that their models are based on what is known, not on gaps in knowledge.[Citation Needed]
Christian YECs adhere strongly to the concept of biblical inerrancy, which declares the Bible to be divinely inspired and therefore scientifically infallible and non-correctable. This position is considered by devotees and critics alike to be incompatible with the principles of scientific Objectivity. The Young Earth creationist organizations Answers in Genesis (AiG) and Institute for Creation Research (ICR) require all members to pledge support for biblical inerrancy.
YECs often suggest that supporters of evolution theory are primarily motivated by atheism. Critics reject this claim by pointing out that many supporters of evolutionary theory are in fact religious believers, and that major religious groups such as the Roman Catholic Church and Church of England believe that the concept of biological evolution does not imply a rejection of the scriptures. Nor do they support the specific doctrines of biblical inerrancy proposed by YEC. Critics also point out that workers in fields related to evolutionary biology are not required to sign statements of belief in evolution comparable to the biblical inerrancy pledges required by ICR and AiG. This is contrary to the popular belief of creationists that scientists operate on an a priori disbelief in biblical principles.[65] They also discount Christian faith positions, like those of French Jesuit priest, geologist and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who saw that his work with evolutionary sciences actually confirmed and inspired his faith in the cosmic Christ. Nor do they believe the views of Catholic priest Fr. Thomas Berry, a cultural historian and eco-theologian, that the cosmological 13 billion year "Universe Story" provides all faiths and all traditions a single account by which the divine has made its presence in the world.
Proponents of YEC are regularly accused of quote mining, the practice of isolating passages from academic texts that appear to support their claims while deliberately excluding context and conclusions to the contrary.[66]
Some theologians oppose the proposition that God can be a legitimate or viable subject for scientific experimentation, and reject a literal interpretation of Genesis. They propose there are statements in the creation week itself which render the historical interpretation of Genesis incompatible with scientific evidence.
One example is that God created the Earth and heavens, and light, on Day 1, plant life on Day 3, and the sun and moon on Day 4. One must ask where the light in Day 1 came from, and why there were plants in Day 3 if the sun, which provides all light to the Earth, did not even exist until Day 4.[67] YECs such as Basil the Great and John Calvin answered this by suggesting that the light created by God on Day 1 was the light source. Answers in Genesis has refined this by suggesting that the Earth was already rotating with respect to this light.[68] One can also make a case that God created the plants toward the evening of Day 3, the Sun was created on the morning of Day 4, therefore the plants only had to endure darkness for a period not much longer than a typical night.
Another problem is the fact that distant galaxies can be seen. If the universe did not exist until 10,000 years ago, then light from anything farther than 10,000 light-years would not have time to reach us. Most cosmologists accept an inflation model as the likely explanation for the horizon problem. Inflationary models also account for other phenomena, and are in agreement with observations of recent microwave anisotropy satellites. Creationists have also proposed models to explain why we see distant starlight.[69][70] See creationist cosmologies and the starlight problem for more information.
Many critics claim that Genesis itself is internally inconsistent on the question of whether man was created before the animals or after the animals as stated in Genesis. Proponents of the Documentary hypothesis suggest that Genesis 1 was a litany from the Priestly source (possibly from an early Jewish liturgy) while Genesis 2 was assembled from older Jahwist material, holding that for both stories to be a single account, Adam would have named all the animals, and God would have created Eve from his rib as a suitable mate, all within a single 24 hour period. Many creationists attribute this view to misunderstanding having arisen from poor translation of the tenses in Genesis 2 in contemporary translations of the Bible (e.g. compare "planted" and "had planted" in KJV and NIV).[71] Some Christians assert that the Bible is free from error only in religious and moral matters, and that where scientific questions are concerned, the Bible should not be read literally. This position is held by a number of major denominations. For instance, in a publication entitled The Gift of Scripture,[72] the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales comments that "We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision". The Bible is held to be true in passages relating to human salvation, but "We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters."[73] By contrast, YECs contend that moral and spiritual matters in the Bible are intimately connected with its historical accuracy; in their view, the Bible stands or falls as a single indivisible block of knowledge.[74]
Aside from the theological doubts voiced by other Christians, YEC also stands in opposition to the creation mythologies of other religions (both extant and extinct). Many of these make claims regarding the origin of the universe and humanity that are completely incompatible with those of Christian creationists (and with one another).[75]
Young Earth creationist responses to criticisms from atheistic evolutionists, theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, and others include the following:
For a more detailed treatment, see Arguments for a recent creation.
Many arguments for a recent creation have been put forward by creationary scientists, both scientific and theological arguments.
Scientific arguments include radiometric dating results that disagree with secular ages, other dating methods that do not fit with secular ages, and phenomenon showing events that occurred quickly.
There should be virtually no 14C present in carbon supposedly older than 100,000 years, yet it has proved impossible to find any such carbon without 14C.
Dating methods don't have to be based on radioactivity. Measuring the amount of sodium in sea water, for example, and calculating how long it would take to reach those levels is another method. Yet calculations show that the amount of sodium could not have taken longer than 62 million years to accumulate, well short of the 3,000 million year supposed age of the oceans.
Polystrate fossils demonstrate that many layers of sedimentary rock that are normally supposed to take a long time to form can be formed quite quickly.
Young Earth Creationism is a subset of Creationism most commonly found among members of the Abrahamic religions, especially Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (for details please see: Creationism). In regards to early Judaism and early Christianity, early Judaism supported young earth creationism and a majority of the early church fathers held the young earth creationist view.[78]
According to Gallup, young Earth creationism had a clear plurality of adherents in the United States until 2017, and even then it still comprised a large minority of the U.S. population.[79]
Some of the more notable young earth creationist organizations include: Answers in Genesis (America and the United Kingdom), Creation Ministries International (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.A., and United Kingdom), Institute for Creation Research (U.S.A.), Creation Research Society (U.S.A.), and NorthWest Creation Network (Washington state, U.S.A.) which founded CreationWiki.
Creation Ministries International publishes a 56-page color magazine, Creation magazine, with no paid advertising, which is distributed to 140 countries.[80]
The Institute for Creation Research publishes a free monthly magazine, Acts & Facts, which includes news of the organization and articles.
Answers in Genesis, which previously distributed Creation, began their own magazine, Answers, in 2006. It contains advertising and its target audience is primarily American.[81]
The Creation Research Society Quarterly is published quarterly by the Creation Research Society,[82] and the Journal of Creation is published three times a year by Creation Ministries International.[83]
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History and young earth creation:
Young earth creation websites:
Articles focusing on arguments for a young earth:
Videos and movies focusing on arguments for a young earth:
Profiles of important young earth biblical creation scientists: