At last: Skeptics are awakening to see what creationists really believe

Skeptic, Michael Shermer’s magazine, is probably one of the best-known skeptic publications. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

Known for his many books and articles, Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine, is not averse to discussing controversial topics. In the new issue of E-Skeptic he recommends Daniel Loxton’s article on creationism.

Loxton equates young earth creationism with Darwinism.

According to an old myth, creationists believe that species have hardly changed since creation.

However, Loxton took a look at the websites of Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International and he was almost as astonished as the shepherds to whom angels announced the good news near the little town of Bethelem.

He noticed that creationists do not deny natural selection. Neither do they claim that species have not changed or do not change.

Many creationists believe that the global flood of Noah’s days was a genetic bottleneck that most probably accelerated speciation.

Loxton even checked what Creationwiki had to say about baraminology. The concept is derived from the Hebrew words bara (’create’) and min (’kind’). In other words, baraminology has to do with the study of created kinds.

Animals change according to their kinds. For instance, the Australian wild dog dingo (Canis lupus dingo) is now considered to be a separate species. It probably developed from the domesticated dog (Canis lupus familiaris) that returned to living in the wild. The domesticated dog developed from the wolf (Canis lupus).

However, a dog could never evolve into a cat. Neither could a unicellular organism develop into a multicellular animal since it would need far too many beneficial mutations. As Haldane’s dilemma suggests, even hundreds of millions of years would be far too short for that.

Darwinian evolution does not work in practice. It cannot explain where the necessary genetic information comes from. Without huge additions of information, a unicellular organism will for ever remain a unicellular creature.


Source:

Loxton, Daniel. 2009. Young Earth Creationism = Darwinism. Skepticblog (8 December)
http://skepticblog.org/2009/12/08/young-earth-creationism-darwinism/