I struggle with this rhetoric. Many (most?) YECs including those with scientific training are not exactly “lying”, as if they know they are saying falsehood. Most of them really appear to believe what they are teaching. The issue here is not so much intentional deceit (though that may occur at times). It is something else.
Likewise, I understand your objection to the word “misled”, which might imply intentional deceit.
But as pointed out already, the issue is not about intent but about the demonstrable evidence that shows they are wrong in how they describe the world. Even if young earth creationism is correct, one can go see for oneself in the Grand Canyon (and pictures of the Grand Canyon too) that many claims the make are false. It matters not their intent, they are just wrong on the basic facts, so this raise a great deal of doubt for most people about their subsequent conclusions.
[quote=“jammycakes, post:34, topic:35243”]
The “Is Genesis history” movie claims that there is no evidence of erosion in the Grand Canyon anywhere above the Grand Unconformity. The article states that there is lots of evidence of erosion above the Grand Unconformity. These are not things that are based on opposing worldviews; they are demonstrable facts. [/quote]
As a computational biologist, we see similar falsehoods promoted too. I’m always amazed when I see people claiming that human and chimp genomes are less than 90% similar (they are really much closer to 98%). Nowadays, it is easy for a high schooler to download the free data and free software to check this themselves. We can all see the evidence for ourselves if we so choose.
Whatever one’s motivations are for putting forward a false number, whether or not it is intentional or not, this really reduces one’s credibility. And injuring trust this way (regardless of the intentions) does significant injury to people.