Well my authority is the Bible, but I’m with @rsewell on this one.
Why? Because the Bible says this:
13 Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. 14 Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 16 For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly. — Deuteronomy 25:13-16
The Bible has far, far, far, far more to say about how we are to approach science than about what results we should expect it to give. Any creation model, any interpretation of Genesis 1, any challenge to the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth or evolution must obey those verses. This means that there are rules that you must follow and standards that you must maintain. If you want to argue that the Earth is only six thousand years old rather than 4.5 billion, or that humans and animals are unrelated, or that the Flood covered everywhere from the Rockies to the Appalachians to the Alps to the Himalayas, then you must do so without quote mining, fudging measurements, misrepresenting or cherry-picking evidence, exaggerating or downplaying sources of error, claiming that scientists make assumptions that they do not, claiming that the assumptions that they do make are not testable when in actual fact they are, or attacking straw man mischaracterisations of evolution that are not what is taught in any school or university textbook. To do any of these things in the process of arguing for a young earth, a global Flood, or independent human ancestry, is not “trusting the Word of God over man’s feeble and flawed understanding of the creation and how it operates”; it is lying.
(Incidentally, @Burrawang took offence at me using the “L” word in a previous thread. All I can say in response to that is that if you don’t want to be accused of lying, then don’t tell lies.)
This is because “real empirical science” and “historical or forensic science” share a common set of rules. All aspects of disciplines such as geology and biology with regard to the origins question about what happened in the distant past have to obey the same rules. The fact that nobody was there to see things happen is not a licence to quote mine, fudge measurements, misrepresent or cherry-pick evidence, exaggerate or downplay sources of error, claim that scientists make assumptions that they do not, claim that the assumptions that they do make are not testable when in fact they are, or attack straw man mischaracterisations of evolution that are not what is taught in any school or university textbook. It is rules such as these that enable us to determine what happened in the distant past without having been there to see it happen. It is rules such as these that allow us to differentiate between a 6,000 year old Earth and a 4.5 billion year old Earth. It is rules such as these that allow us to differentiate between common ancestry of humans and animals and independent human ancestry. It is rules such as these that people who try to make a distinction between “operational” and “historical” science either do not understand or else wilfully ignore.
Yes, and it is God’s Word, as the final authority, that commands us to tell the truth. It is God’s Word, as the final authority, that tells us that we must not fudge measurements, misrepresent evidence, or make slanderous accusations and conspiracy theories against honest and hard working paleontologists, geochronologists and evolutionary biologists, many of whom are themselves our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is God’s Word, as the final authority, that tells us that obedience is better than sacrifice. You may think that it’s a sacrifice to proclaim a young earth, a global Flood or non-evolution, but trying to support such a position with falsehood, misinformation or fudged measurements is disobedience.