Phalacrocorax auritus
Accipiter cooperii
John Woodmorappe vs. modern creation science: a response
Jonathan Kane is a science writer who has written three previous posts for Panda’s Thumb: Creationist classification of theropods, Five principles for arguing against creationism, and General intelligence: What we know and how we know it. He is the editor and primary author of God’s Word or Human Reason? An Inside Perspective on Creationism, co-authored with Emily Willoughby, T. Michael Keesey, Glenn Morton, and James R. Comer, published December 2016 by Inkwater Press. Matt Young is this post’s moderator.
In the August 2018 issue of the Journal of Creation, John Woodmorappe published a negative review of my book: “A detailed rehash of all the canned anti-creationist shibboleths: A review of God’s Word or Human Reason? An inside perspective on creationism (Jonathan Kane, Emily Willoughby, and T. Michael Keesey)”. Journal of Creation 32.2: 42–47. Pierre Jerlstrom, the editorial coordinator of the Journal of Creation, has invited me to write a letter replying to Woodmorappe’s review in that journal, and my letter is scheduled to appear in the the journal’s next issue (volume 32 issue 3). However, my reply is restricted to 1,000 words as per the journal’s standard guidelines for letters. Since Woodmorappe’s review is several times that length, it isn’t possible for me to adequately respond to it in that amount of space, so I’ve decided to write a longer response here as a supplement to my letter.
Existing YEC responses
As is suggested by the title of his review, the central theme of all Woodmorappe’s criticisms is that my book’s arguments are not actually new and that creationists have already dealt with most of them. He gives three examples: the book’s discussion of desiccation mudcracks in Glenn Morton’s chapter about stratigraphy, the discussion of nylon-eating bacteria in a sidebar of my own main chapter, and the criticism of the RATE project in Emily Willoughby’s chapter about radiometric dating.
Before examining these criticisms in detail, I should clarify that as a general principle, I don’t have a problem with creationists making the sort of complaint that Woodmorappe is making, if an argument against creationism really is ignoring the existing creationist literature about its subject matter. As I mentioned in my “five principles” article, I’m aware that this flaw has existed in numerous other books that criticize creationism, and I put a lot of effort into avoiding it as the lead editor of my own book. I ended up leaving out a few arguments against creationism that I would have liked to include, due to deciding that the creationist literature on their topics was so extensive, the difficulty of addressing all of it outweighed the value of bringing up these points. More than anything else, what I object to about Woodmorappe’s claim is his unwillingness to acknowledge the effort that I and the other authors put into avoiding this problem.
Ark Park visit doesn't qualify as college prep
Reprinted from the Lexington Herald-Leader with permission of the author. Photographs courtesy of Dan Phelps.
In June 2018, 35 public middle and high school students from Bell, Harlan and Letcher counties were taken by Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College on a “college preparation” field trip that included the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter.
This was documented in the Middlesboro Daily News on Aug. 7. Information I received via an open-records request indicates the community college spent more than $1,300 for tickets to the Ark and Creation Museum plus additional travel expenses.
Both the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter are run by the young-earth creationist organization, Answers in Genesis. It is a fundamentalist Christian apologetic ministry with the stated aim of instructing Ark and museum visitors that the Bible is literally true, and converting them to their version of Christianity.
By taking students to these venues, the community college’s program, which is a public, state-supported institution, unconstitutionally used tax monies to promote a specific religious message.
Moreover, the Kentucky Constitution forbids the use of taxpayer dollars to support a ministry.
Perhaps more importantly, the exhibits at the Ark and Creation Museum are scientifically unsound and go against the idea of preparing high school students for college-level work.
Sympetrum sp.
