4: To Old Earth Creationism via Clark's Gully

This is the fourth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.


To Old Earth Creationism (via Clark's Gully)

Roxburgh describes the third phase of paradigm change, disembedding, as:

"...when we begin to feel that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it - like Dorothy [in The Wizard of Oz] being carried away from Kansas by a tornado."

As I described in the last post, my confidence in Young Earth Creationism took a huge hit when I heard creationist Kent Hovind make a fool of himself in a radio debate with evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci. This bothered me considerably, and was enough to overpower my comfortable ignorance and begin looking into the evidence for creationism.

A more profound effect of the rupture of these long-held beliefs was a heightened interest in the world around me. The new possibility of great age was enough to turn an ordinary rock from boring into fascinating.

My wife and I both grew up in Michigan, and we frequently travel between upstate New York and western Michigan. Each trip brings us over the Niagara Escarpment, a raised ridge that is prominent along the QEW expressway in Ontario. The Niagara Falls is also along our travel route, a feature which occurs where the Niagara river flows over the escarpment.

YECs believe that all the geological features of the earth came about as a result of Noah's flood, a theory which they call "flood geology". That had always seemed a little incredible to me: How could this massive step in the earth's crust be selectively carved or deposited by a big flood? How would that same flood deposit the layers into which the escarpment is carved? Even so, I had never had a reason to question these claims.

The new discontinuity in my YEC beliefs prompted me to look up the geological explanation for the Niagara Escarpment. I just couldn't drive up and down along it without knowing how it might have really been formed. I learned that it is the edge of an ancient sea; The remains of microscopic animals that lived in this sea had formed a layer of hard limestone, which has since eroded more slowly than the surrounding rock. Now that made a whole lot more sense. And it was pretty neat.

Also at this time, I had begun to take frequent hiking trips to the gullys that pepper the slopes of the finger lakes region of upstate New York. My favorite was a gully on the south side of Canandaigua lake called Clark's Gully. This is an incredible place. From an unmarked trail, a short 5-minute hike over huge boulders is rewarded with a view up a modest 30-foot waterfall. The sides of the gully rise sharply on both sides, cutting off access to all but the most intrepid. Those willing to climb up the slippery waterfall, or take the "long way" and trek up the steep slope around the gully are rewarded with an incredible array of features; Steep, ribbed cliffs line each side, while huge mossy boulders are placed in strategic positions as if by an interior designer. I know it sounds cheesy, but I left a piece of myself in that gully, and I think that piece may just be fully YEC.




The discovery of this new and exciting worldview (at least geologically speaking) prompted me to look into the next piece of the puzzle: The Big Bang. Whole volumes are written about the evidence for the Big Bang, so this is not the place to regurgitate this information. In short, I was astonished. The evidence is so complete, so compelling, that I became embarrassed for ever believing it was incorrect. I felt lucky that I hadn't shared my anti-Big-Bang beliefs with many of my non-church friends.

While I was learning about the Big Bang, I made another significant discovery: Other Christians exist that believe the universe is old, and that the Big Bang really happened. This is one of those things that I look back on and think: "Well, duh, of course!" But this disconnect with reality is a result of my history; I was taught a single (YEC) viewpoint as a child, and taught that it was the only correct belief, and that anything different (evolution, old earth) is evil and from Satan. Coupled with an overall disinterest in all things spiritual during my college years, I had never encountered another Christian who believed anything other than a recent creation 6000 years ago. This is why the discovery of old earth creationism was a surprise to me.

Hugh Ross is the most outspoken proponent of old earth creationism. I devoured his books: The Fingerprint of God, The Creator and the Cosmos, Creation and Time and Beyond the Cosmos. Ross describes a set of beliefs that acknowledges the validity of both science and religion, including the ancient age of the universe as well as the validity of the Genesis creation account. Typically, this approach inserts large amounts of time in the days of creation in Genesis 1, and proposes a parallel between the things that were created during the seven days of creation and the scientific description of the history of the earth. Evolution is generally denied in favor of "progressive creation" which suggests that God created via fiat miracle at various points in the history of life on earth.

Another aspect of this process that I must mention is this: Old earth creationists are very fond of listing scientific facts that point to an incredible fine-tuning of the universe and solar system to support life. This concept, called the anthropic principle, describes how properties of the cosmos, universe, solar system, earth, and biology are perfectly "tuned" to support life. This interesting and remarkable fact was key in bolstering my confidence, but as I will describe in the next post, ended up being a key chink in my armor in the following few months.

So, as Roxburgh describes, the third phase in the process of paradigm change, disembedding, involves disconnecting from the current system which has failed. As I've described above, the first part of this disembedding process involved embracing old earth creationism. This was basically the same YEC beliefs, with an acceptance of the theory and process of science, the old age of the universe and earth, and a modest change in the interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. This might seem small, but I felt light-years away from were I was just months before.

But my disembedding process wasn't over. In the next post, I'll try to describe how my new interest in cosmology would lead me to the brink of full-blown atheism.

3: Enter Kent Hovind

This is the third in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

Discontinuity - Enter Kent Hovind

Discontinuity came very slowly. It began when I took a zoology course at Grand Rapids Community College. It didn't shake my belief in YEC in any way, it simply began to help me understand what evolution is, what it claims to explain, and why it makes sense. I remember coming home one night and telling my Dad that I was starting to see how someone could think that it made sense. He continued to wonder out loud "How anyone could actually believe that stuff?"

So, my scientific knowledge updated with a basic understanding of evolution, I finished college (electrical engineering) and grad school (materials science) without significant change in my faith; mainly because my faith had a very small place in my life. During this time, my god was not the creator of the universe, but a creator of music... I lived and breathed The Dave Matthews Band. You could delete this section of my life without effect. It's sad, but true.

When the music was over, I found myself at a Baptist church, becoming challenged to either make my faith a real part of my life, or stop pretending. I decided to do the former; to embrace Jesus as my savior. But I was again surrounded by people who believed that evolution wasn't true.

At one point, the evidence for an old earth came up in a Sunday School class I was attending. An elderly man, one I had come to know well in recent months, made the statement: "What's wrong with that? Weren't there rings on the trees in the garden of Eden?" This was surprising to me. This was the first time I had encountered a Christian who admitted that the earth might at least look old. As I look back on it, I am shocked that it took that long. In any case, the door was open to at least consider the characteristics of the earth that made it look older than 10,000 years.

In the following months, I read a considerable amount of Creationist writings, by people like Ken Ham and Johnathan Sarfatti. My intention was to build my knowledge and confidence in my faith; to equip myself to defend my belief in creation. The result of all this reading, however, was a growing uneasiness.

I was troubled by the seemingly complete lack of understanding of evolution. This is not the place for a discussion of the failures of YEC, but their statements repeatedly show either a complete incompetence in all things scientific, or an incredible lack of integrity. I won't make this judgement, but both options are detrimental to the YEC crusade to disprove evolution.

A typical YEC tactic is to present a barrage of statistics and "proofs" that the earth is young, and that evolution cannot occur. In my effort to evaluate and understand this viewpoint, I decided that I needed a better understanding of evolution to more accurately decide who was right. I decided to use my 45-minute commute to "take" an audio course titled "Darwin, Darwinism, and the Modern World" by Chandak Sengoopta. This helped greatly in gaining a correct understanding of evolution, but increased my uneasiness with the YEC arguments.

At about this time, I found on the internet a radio debate between Kent Hovind (a YEC), and Massimo Pigliucci (an evolutionary biologist). I was excited to hear the two viewpoints presented side-by-side, and was anxious to see a Christian (and a professional evolution "debunker" at that) deal with the evolution problem head-on. I completely expected for the Creationist to give compelling reasons why evolution should be doubted, and to show that Creation, as laid out in Genesis, was the most viable alternative.

If you listen to the debate, you will be able to predict what happened. Pigliucci presents an easily understandable, well-reasoned explanation of evolution, and Hovind presents an air-tight case for his own incompetence. Hovind made statements that I knew anyone who even attempted to understand evolution would not make. Statements like:

The dogs change to get big dogs or little dogs, but they don't change into cows or bananas or pine trees.

and

You think humans and dogs came from a rock.

Or when asked what kind of evidence would convince him of evolution:

I want to see a frog come from a pig.

Hovind made statements that show that he is either intentionally deceptive, or incredibly dense and stupid. I'll avoid making that determination, but I wanted nothing of either alternative. As I listened, I couldn't believe the shame and embarrassment I felt for believing the same things as Hovind. My expectations of Hovind slam-dunking evolution had gone down in flames. I was ashamed and disappointed.

This is where the second phase of paradigm change reached its climax. The old system wasn't working so well, and it scared me to death.

Now, to be fair, Kent Hovind is the bottom of the barrel. Other YEC proponents like Ken Ham and Johnathan Sarfatti do not act like children, and at least they pay their taxes. As I said before, I was familiar with these guys, and my entire YEC worldview did not crumble with Hovind's incompetence. But I realized that I couldn't take their claims at face value. I at least needed to look into their claims to make sure they were true.

So that's what I did. What happened, in short, is incredible [heavy sarcasm]: I actually checked these claims. It's embarrassing, I know, but this was the first time that I actually looked at the claims of YECs to determine if they were true. I was disappointed.

I have to admit that this was also my first time I had actually seen a lot of the evidence for creationism. Frankly, up until that point, I didn't really have a reason to read any creationist literature. I was content that someone, somewhere had some reason for me to keep believing what I had been taught since I was a child.

I've decided not to discuss specific creationist evidence in this post. I'm sure I'll discuss this in future blog posts, but I don't think that proving the inadequacy of the YEC position is necessary, and would only prolong this lengthy post.

So, this is how discontinuity set in, in this retrospective look at my paradigm change from creationist to evolutionist. My next post will continue from this point, into the next phase of Roxburg's description of paradigm change: Disembedding.

"Evolution... is the dumbest idea in the history of humanity" -Kent Hovind