Thanks for the shout-out Laura. It’s good to know that my blog posts are still providing value six years later. I’m increasingly trying to take a back seat in discussions about creation and evolution these days, mainly because I want to focus my attention science-wise on more practical, hands-on activities. That being the case, I’ve increasingly been thinking I’ve taken my contributions to the debate as far as I can, and it’s time to leave it to people who have more experience in the relevant areas than I do.
Although my review of Answers in Genesis’s top ten is useful I don’t consider it the most important thing I’ve had to say in the debate. Instead, the most important thing that I can see is the need to establish an understanding of the basic rules and principles about what does or does not constitute a legitimate argument against a scientific theory such as deep geological time or evolution. That’s why I’d instead recommend my three-part series on how to challenge a scientific theory as a starting point.
The problem with young earth claims is that they do not acknowledge the rules, let alone stick to them. In fact they view the rules as if they were some sort of “stacking the deck” against them. My objective here has been to show that even if that is true of some of the rules, there are other rules that they can’t fob off in that way if they want to be considered honest. That’s why I make such a big deal of the need for accurate measurement: besides being straight out of the Bible, it’s something that everyone should be able to agree on, in principle at least, if they’re approaching these discussions with any integrity.
It’s also why I tend to steer clear of discussions about methodological naturalism and advise others to do the same. Even if YECs do misunderstand what methodological naturalism actually is, there’s still a lot of room for disagreement and misunderstanding there, and I think it’s best to focus on rules and principles where we should be able to expect a consensus (with honest people at least) before attempting to tackle ones that are less clear-cut.