QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Topic Index |  Arguments we think creationists should NOT use

The primary authority for Answers in Genesis is the infallible Word of God, the Bible (see Q&A Bible). All theories of science are fallible, and new data often overturn previously held theories. Evolutionists continually revise their theories because of new data, so it should not be surprising or distressing that some creationist scientific theories need to be revised too.

The first article on this page sums up what the creationists’ attitude should be about various ideas and theories. The other articles provide examples of arguments that should no longer be used; some arguments are definitely fallacious, while others are merely doubtful or unsubstantiated. We provide brief explanations why, and/or hyperlinks to other articles on this Web site with more detailed explanations. We don’t claim that this list is exhaustive—it will be updated with additions and maybe deletions as new evidence is discovered. Many of these arguments have never been promoted by AiG, and some have not been promoted by any major creationist organization (so they were not directed at anyone in particular), but are instead straw men set up by anti-creationists.

It is notable that some skeptics criticise creationists when they retract doubtful arguments, but these are also the same people who accuse creationists of being unwilling to change their minds!

Persisting in using discredited arguments simply rebounds—it’s the truth that sets us free (John 8:32), not error, and Christ is ‘the truth’ (John 14:6)! Since there is so much good evidence for creation, there is no need to use any of the ‘doubtful’ arguments.

This page also shows why it is important for people to stay up-to-date with sound creationist literature, since these publications (e.g. Creation magazine, and TJ) have already revealed the fallacious nature of some of these arguments.

*For AiG’s point-by-point response to Kent Hovind’s attempted critique of this page, see Maintaining Creationist Integrity.

What is important for creationists to defend, and what should be held more loosely?

• ‘Hanging Loose’: What should we defend?

Which arguments should definitely not be used?

• ‘Darwin recanted on his deathbed’. Many people use this story, originally from a Lady Hope. However, it is almost certainly not true, and there is no corroboration from those who were closest to him, even from Darwin’s wife Emma, who never liked evolutionary ideas. Also, even if true, so what? If Ken Ham recanted Creation, would that disprove it? There is no value to this argument whatever.

• ‘Moon-Dust thickness proves a young moon’. For a long time, creationists claimed that the dust layer on the moon was too thin if dust had truly been falling on it for billions of years. They based this claim on early estimates—by evolutionists—of the influx of moon dust, and worries that the moon landers would sink into this dust layer. But these early estimates were wrong, and by the time of the Apollo landings, NASA was not worried about sinking. So the dust layer thickness can’t be used as proof of a young moon (or of an old one either). See also Moon Dust and the Age of the Solar System (Technical).

• ‘NASA computers, in calculating the positions of planets, found a missing day and 40 minutes, proving Joshua’s “long day” and Hezekiah’s sundial movement of Joshua 10 and 2 Kings 20.’ Not promoted by major creationist organizations, but an hoax in wide circulation, especially on the Internet.
  
  Essentially the same story, now widely circulated on the Internet, appeared in the somewhat unreliable 1936 book The Harmony of Science and Scripture by Harry Rimmer. Evidently an unknown person embellished it with modern organization names and modern calculating devices.
  
  Also, the whole story is mathematically impossible—it requires a fixed reference point before Joshua’s long day. In fact we would need to cross-check between both astronomical and historical records to detect any missing day. And to detect a missing 40 minutes requires that these reference points be known to within an accuracy of a few minutes. It is certainly true that the timing of solar eclipses observable from a certain location can be known precisely. But the ancient records did not record time that precisely, so the required cross-check is simply not possible. Anyway, the earliest historically recorded eclipse occurred in 1217 BC, nearly two centuries after Joshua. So there is no way the missing day could be detected by any computer. See also Has NASA Discovered a ‘Missing Day’? for historical and scientific documentation that this alleged discovery is mythological.
  
  Note that discrediting this myth doesn’t mean that the events of Joshua 10 didn’t happen. Features in the account support its reliability, e.g. the moon was also slowed down. This was not necessary to prolong the day, but this would be observed from Earth’s reference frame if God had accomplished this miracle by slowing Earth’s rotation. See Joshua’s long day—did it really happen?

• ‘Woolly mammoths were snap frozen during the Flood catastrophe’. This is contradicted by the geological setting in which mammoths are found. It’s most likely that they perished toward the end of the Ice Age, possibly in catastrophic dust storms. Partially digested stomach contents are not proof of a snap freeze, because the elephant’s stomach functions as a holding area—a mastodon with preserved stomach contents was found in mid-western USA, where the ground was not frozen. See also technical PDF article.

• ‘The Castenedolo and Calaveras human remains in “old” strata invalidate the geologic column.’ These are not sound examples—the Castenedolo skeletal material shows evidence of being an intrusive burial, i.e. a recent burial into older strata, since all the fossils apart from the human ones had time to be impregnated with salt. The Calaveras skull was probably a hoax planted into a mine by miners. For the current AiG view on human fossil stratigraphy, see Where are all the human fossils? from the Answers Book.

• ‘Dubois renounced Java man as a “missing link” and claimed it was just a giant gibbon.’ Evolutionary anthropology textbooks claimed this, and creationists followed suit. However, this actually misunderstood Dubois, as Stephen Jay Gould has shown. It’s true that Dubois claimed that Java man (which he called Pithecanthropus erectus) had the proportions of a gibbon. But Dubois had an eccentric view of evolution (universally discounted today) that demanded a precise correlation between brain size and body weight. Dubois’ claim about Java man actually contradicted the reconstructed evidence of its likely body mass. But it was necessary for Dubois’ idiosyncratic proposal that the alleged transitional sequence leading to man fit into a mathematical series. So Dubois’ gibbon claim was designed to reinforce its ‘missing link‘ status. See Who was ‘Java man’?

• ‘The Japanese trawler Zuiyo Maru caught a dead plesiosaur near New Zealand’. This carcass was almost certainly a rotting basking shark, since their gills and jaws rot rapidly and fall off, leaving the typical small ‘neck’ with the head. This has been shown by similar specimens washed up on beaches. Also, detailed anatomical and biochemical studies of the Zuiyo-maru carcass show that it could not have been a plesiosaur.

• ‘The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics began at the Fall’. This law says that the entropy (‘disorder’) of the Universe increases over time, and some have thought that this was the result of the Curse. However, disorder isn’t always harmful. An obvious example is digestion, breaking down large complex food molecules into their simple building blocks. Another is friction, which turns ordered mechanical energy into disordered heat—otherwise Adam and Eve would have slipped as they walked with God in Eden! A less obvious example to laymen might be the sun heating the Earth—to a physical chemist, heat transfer from a hot object to a cold one is the classic case of the Second Law in action. Also, breathing is based on another classic Second Law process, gas moving from a high pressure to low pressure. Finally, all beneficial processes in the world, including the development from embryo to adult, increase the overall disorder of the universe, showing that the Second Law is not inherently a curse.
  
  Death and suffering of nephesh animals before sin are contrary to the Biblical framework above, as are suffering (or ‘groaning in travail’ (Rom. 8:20–22)). It is more likely that God withdrew some of His sustaining power (Col. 1:15–17) at the Fall so that the decay effect of the Second Law was no longer countered.

• ‘If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes today?’ In response to this statement, some evolutionists point out that they don’t believe that we descended from apes, but that apes and humans share a common ancestor. However, the evolutionary paleontologist G.G. Simpson had no time for this ‘pussyfooting’, as he called it. He said, ‘In fact, that earlier ancestor would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man’s ancestors were apes or monkeys (or successively both). It is pusillanimous [mean-spirited] if not dishonest for an informed investigator to say otherwise.’

However, the main point against this statement is that many evolutionists believe that a small group of creatures split off from the main group and became reproductively isolated from the main large population, and that most change happened in the small group which can lead to allopatric speciation (a geographically isolated population forming a new species). So there's nothing in evolutionary theory that requires the main group to become extinct.

It’s important to note that allopatric speciation is not the sole property of evolutionists—creationists believe that most human variation occurred after small groups became isolated (but not speciated) at Babel, while Adam and Eve probably had mid-brown skin color. The quoted erroneous statement is analogous to saying ‘If all people groups came from Adam and Eve, then why are mid-brown people still alive today?’

So what’s the difference between the creationist explanation of people groups (‘races’) and the evolutionist explanation of people origins? Answer: the former involves separation of already-existing information and loss of information through mutations; the latter requires the generation of tens of millions of ‘letters’ of new information.

• ‘Women have one more rib than men.’ AiG has long pointed out the fallacy of this statement, which seems to be more popular with dishonest skeptics wanting to caricature creation. The removal of a rib would not affect the genetic instructions passed on to the offspring, any more than a man who loses a finger will have sons with nine fingers. Any skeptic who tries to discredit the Bible with this argument must be a closet Lamarckian, i.e. one who believes Lamarck’s thoroughly discredited idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics! Note also that Adam wouldn’t have had a permanent defect, because the rib is the one bone that can regrow if the surrounding membrane (periosteum) is left intact. See Regenerating ribs: Adam and that ‘missing’ rib.

• ‘Archaeopteryx is a fraud’. Archaeopteryx was genuine (unlike Archaeoraptor, a ‘Piltdown bird’), as shown by anatomical studies and close analysis of the fossil slab. It was a true bird, not a ‘missing link’.

• ‘There are no beneficial mutations.’ This is not true, since some changes do confer an advantage in some situations. Rather, we should say, ‘We have yet to find a mutation that increases genetic information, even in those rare instances where the mutation confers an advantage.’ For examples of information loss being advantageous, see Beetle Bloopers: defects can be an advantage sometimes, New eyes for blind cave fish? and Is antibiotic resistance really due to increase in information?

• ‘No new species have been produced.’ This is not true—new species have been observed to form. In fact, rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model. But this speciation is within the ‘kind’, and involves no new genetic information. See Q&A: Speciation.

• ‘Earth’s axis was vertical before the Flood.’ There is no basis for this claim. Seasons are mentioned in Genesis 1:14 before the Flood, which strongly suggests an axial tilt from the beginning. Some creationists believe that a change in axial tilt (but not from the vertical) started Noah’s Flood. But a lot more evidence is needed and this idea should be regarded as speculative for now. Furthermore, computer modelling suggests that an upright axis would make temperature differences between the poles and equator far more extreme than now, while the current tilt of 23.5° is ideal. The Moon has an important function in stabilizing this tilt, and the Moon’s large relative size and the fact that its orbital plane is close to the Earth’s (unlike most moons in our solar system) are design features.

• ‘Paluxy tracks prove that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.’ Some prominent creationist promoters of these tracks have long since withdrawn their support. Some of the allegedly human tracks may be artefacts of erosion of dinosaur tracks obscuring the claw marks. There is a need for properly documented research on the tracks before we would use them to argue the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. However there is much evidence that dinosaurs and humans co-existed—see Q&A: Dinosaurs.

• Darwin’s quote about the absurdity of eye evolution from Origin of Species. Citing his statement at face value is subtly out of context. Darwin was talking about its seeming absurdity but then said that after all it was quite easy to imagine that the eye could be built step-by-step (in his opinion, with which AiG obviously disagrees—see Darwin v The Eye and An eye for creation).

• ‘Earth’s division in the days of Peleg (Gen. 10:25) refers to catastrophic splitting of the continents.’ Commentators both before and after Lyell and Darwin (including Calvin, Keil and Delitzsch, and Leupold) are almost unanimous that this passage refers to linguistic division at Babel and subsequent territorial division. We should always interpret Scripture with Scripture, and there’s nothing else in Scripture to indicate that this referred to continental division. But only eight verses on (note that chapter and verse divisions were not inspired), the Bible states, ‘Now the whole earth had one language and one speech’ (Gen. 11:1), and as a result of their disobedience, ‘the LORD confused the language of all the earth’ (Gen. 11:9). This conclusively proves that the ‘Earth’ that was divided was the same Earth that spoke only one language, i.e. ‘Earth’ refers in this context to the people of the Earth, not Planet Earth.
  
  Another major problem is the scientific consequences of such splitting—another global flood! This gives us the clue as to when the continents did move apart — during Noah’s Flood — see below on plate tectonics.

• ‘The Septuagint records the correct Genesis chronology.’ This is not so. The Septuagint chronologies are demonstrably inflated, and contain the (obvious) error that Methuselah lived 17 years after the Flood. The Masoretic Text (on which almost all English translations are based) preserves the correct chronology. See Williams, P., Some remarks preliminary to a Biblical chronology, CEN Technical Journal 12(1):98–106, 1998.

• ‘There are gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 so the Earth may be 10,000 years old or even more.’ This is not so. The language is clear that they are strict chronologies, especially because they give the age of the father at the birth of the next name in line. So the Earth is only about 6,000 years old. See Biblical genealogies for exegetical proof.

• ‘Jesus cannot have inherited genetic material from Mary, otherwise He would have inherited original sin.’ This is not stated in Scripture and even contradicts important points. The language of the NT indicates physical descent, which must be true for Jesus to have fulfilled the prophecies that He would be a descendant of Abraham, Jacob, Judah and David. Also, the Protevangelium of Gen. 3:15, regarded as Messianic by both early Christians and the Jewish Targums, refers to ‘the seed of the woman’. This is supported by Gal. 4:4, ‘God sent forth His Son, coming (genomenon) from a woman.’ Most importantly, for Jesus to have died for our sins, Jesus, the ‘last Adam’ (1 Cor. 15:45), had to share in our humanity (Heb. 2:14), so must have been our relative via common descent from the first Adam as Luke 3:38 says. In fact, seven centuries before His Incarnation, the Prophet Isaiah spoke of Him as literally the ‘Kinsman-Redeemer’, i.e. one who is related by blood to those he redeems (Isaiah 59:20, uses the same Hebrew word goel as used to describe Boaz in relation to Ruth). To answer the concern about original sin, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary (Luke 1:35), preventing any sin nature being transmitted. See also The Virginal Conception of Christ for a defence of this foundational doctrine and further discussion of these Biblical passages.

• ‘The phrase “science falsely so called” in 1 Timothy 6:20 (KJV) refers to evolution.’ To develop a Scriptural model properly, we must understand what the author intended to communicate to his intended audience, which in turn is determined by the grammar and historical context. We must not try to read into Scripture that which appears to support a particular viewpoint. The original Greek word translated ‘science’ is gnosis, and in this context refers to the élite esoteric ‘knowledge’ that was the key to the mystery religions, which later developed into the heresy of Gnosticism. This was not an error by the KJV translators, but an illustration of how many words have changed their meanings over time. The word ‘science’ originally meant ‘knowledge’, from the Latin scientia, from scio meaning ‘know’. This original meaning is just not the way it is used today, so modern translations correctly render the word as ‘knowledge’ in this passage.
  
  Of course AiG believes that evolution is anti-knowledge because it clouds the minds of many to the abundant evidence of God’s action in Creation and the true knowledge available in His Word, the Bible. But as this page points out, it is wrong to use fallacious arguments to support a true viewpoint. On a related matter, it is linguistically fallacious to claim that even now, ‘science really means knowledge’, because meaning is determined by usage, not derivation (etymology).

• ‘Geocentrism (in the classical sense of taking the Earth as an absolute reference frame) is taught by Scripture and Heliocentrism is anti-Scriptural.’ AiG rejects this dogmatic geocentrism, and believes that the Biblical passages about sunset etc. should be understood as taking the Earth as a reference frame, but that this is one of many physically valid reference frames; the centre of mass of the solar system is also a valid reference frame. See also Q&A: Geocentrism, Faulkner, D., Geocentrism and Creation , TJ 15(2):110–121; 2001.

• ‘Ron Wyatt has found Noah’s Ark’ This claimed Ark shape is a natural geological formation caused by a mud flow.

• ‘Ron Wyatt has found much archaeological proof of the Bible’ There is not the slightest substantiation for Wyatt’s claims, just excuses to explain away why the evidence is missing.

• Many of Carl Baugh’s creation ‘evidences’. Sorry to say, AiG thinks that he’s well meaning but that he unfortunately uses a lot of material that is not sound scientifically. So we advise against relying on any ‘evidence’ he provides, unless supported by creationist organisations with reputations for Biblical and scientific rigour. Unfortunately, there are talented creationist speakers with reasonably orthodox understandings of Genesis (e.g. Kent Hovind) who continue to promote some of the Wyatt and Baugh ‘evidences’ despite being approached on the matter (ed. note: see our Maintaining Creationist Integrity, our response to Hovind’s reply to this article).

What arguments are doubtful, hence inadvisable to use?

• Canopy theory. This is not a direct teaching of Scripture, so there is no place for dogmatism. Also, no suitable model has been developed that holds sufficient water; but some creationists suggest a partial canopy may have been present. For AiG’s current opinion, see Noah’s Flood—Where did the water come from? from the Answers Book.

• ‘There was no rain before the Flood.’ This is not a direct teaching of Scripture, so again there should be no dogmatism. Genesis 2:5–6 at face value teaches only that there was no rain at the time Adam was created. But it doesn’t rule out rain at any later time before the Flood, as great pre-uniformitarian commentators such as John Calvin pointed out. A related fallacy is that the rainbow covenant of Genesis 9:12–17 proves that there were no rainbows before the Flood. As Calvin pointed out, God frequently invested existing things with new meanings, e.g. the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper.

• ‘Natural selection as tautology.’ Natural selection is in one sense a tautology (i.e., Who are the fittest? Those who survive/leave the most offspring. Who survive/leave the most offspring? The fittest.). But a lot of this is semantic word-play, and depends on how the matter is defined, and for what purpose the definition is raised. There are many areas of life in which circularity and truth go hand in hand (e.g. What is electric charge? That quality of matter on which an electric field acts. What is an electric field? A region in space that exerts a force on electric charge. But no one would deny that the theory of electricity is thereby invalid and can’t explain how motors work.) — it is only that circularity cannot be used as independent proof of something. To harp on the issue of tautology can become misleading, if the impression is given that something tautological therefore doesn’t happen. Of course the environment can ‘select’, just as human breeders select. Of course demonstrating this doesn’t mean that fish could turn into philosophers by this means — the real issue is the nature of the variation, the information problem. Arguments about tautology distract attention from the real weakness of neo-Darwinism — the source of the new information required. Given an appropriate source of variation (for example, an abundance of created genetic information with the capacity for Mendelian recombination), replicating populations of organisms would be expected to be capable of some adaptation to a given environment, and this has been demonstrated amply in practice.

Natural selection is also a useful explanatory tool in creationist modelling of post-Flood radiation with speciation [see Q&A;: Natural Selection].

• ‘Evolution is just a theory.’ What people usually mean when they say this is ‘Evolution is not proven fact, so it should not be promoted dogmatically.’ Therefore people should say that. The problem with using the word ‘theory’ in this case is that scientists use it to mean a well-substantiated explanation of data. This includes well-known ones such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Newton’s Theory of Gravity, and lesser-known ones such as the Debye-Hückel Theory of electrolyte solutions and the Deryagin-Landau/Verwey-Overbeek (DLVO) theory of the stability of lyophobic sols, etc. It would be better to say that particles-to-people evolution is an unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture.
  
  

• ‘The speed of light has decreased over time’ (c decay). Although most of the evolutionary counter-arguments have been proven to be fallacious, there are still a number of problems, many of which were raised by creationists, which we believe have not been satisfactorily answered. AiG currently prefers Dr Russell Humphreys’ explanation for distant starlight, although neither AiG nor Dr Humphreys claims that his model is infallible. See How can we see distant stars in a young Universe? from the Answers Book.

• ‘There are no transitional forms.’ Since there are candidates, even though they are highly dubious, it’s better to avoid possible comebacks by saying instead: ‘While Darwin predicted that the fossil record would show numerous transitional fossils, even 140 years later, all we have are a handful of disputable examples.’ See also Q&A: Fossils.

• ‘Gold chains have been found in coal.’ Several artefacts, including gold objects, have been documented as having been found within coal, but in each case the coal is no longer associated with the artefact. The evidence is therefore strictly anecdotal (e.g. ‘This object was left behind in the fireplace after a lump of coal was burned’). This does not have the same evidential value as having a specimen with the coal and the artefact still associated.

• ‘Plate tectonics is fallacious.’ AiG believes that Dr John Baumgardner’s work on Catastrophic Plate Tectonics provides a good explanation of continental shifts and the Flood. See Q&A: Plate Tectonics. However, AiG recognises that some reputable creationist scientists disagree with plate tectonics.

• ‘Creationists believe in microevolution but not macroevolution.’ These terms, which focus on ‘small’ v. ‘large’ changes, distract from the key issue of information. That is, particles-to-people evolution requires changes that increase genetic information, but all we observe is sorting and loss of information. We have yet to see even a ‘micro’ increase in information, although such changes should be frequent if evolution were true. Conversely, we do observe quite ‘macro’ changes that involve no new information, e.g. when a control gene is switched on or off.

• ‘The Gospel is in the stars.’ This is an interesting idea, but quite speculative, and many Biblical creationists doubt that it is taught in Scripture, so we do not recommend using it.

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