I appreciate the thoughtful posts above. There are some attempts to disprove my supposed claim that YEC is scientific. I think YEC is TRUE, but I have made no claim that it is SCIENTIFIC. The scientific method is the best method I know to investigate continuing phenomena, but it is not the only fount of truth.   Experiments are great for telling us what happenS, but they are lousy at telling us what happenED.

If we were to place 1,000 ex-Marines in 1,000 warehouses along 1,000 parade routes, could we thereby discover whether Oswald killed President Kennedy? Of course not. We could, of course, determine what happenS when ex-Marines are in warehouses along parade routes, but we can never (by this method) determine what happened in Oswald's particular case. Both AEN and YEC have the same problem is this regard. One cannot experimentally create a universe.   We can certainly search for evidence of the Big Bang, but we also can search for evidence of the creation of light on the first day. Cosmic background radiation has been considered evidence of each.

Below are are some more beliefs which are common to most Ancient Earth Naturalists (AEN). Following them is a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) response to those beliefs which, I hope, will further explain this point.

8. An organism that is more fit to survive is more likely to survive, especially if "fit" is defined as "more likely to survive".

9. An organism that is more fit to reproduce is more likely to reproduce, especially if "fit" is defined as "more likely to reproduce".

10. The descendents of an organism tend to resemble that organism.

11. Though the descendents of an organism tend to resemble that organism, they are not identical to it.

12. Because the descendents of an organism are not identical to it, populations which share a common ancestor may diverge from their common ancestor, and may diverge from other populations.

13. The differences between populations which share a common ancestor tend to increase as the number of generations from the common ancestor increases.

14. The differences between populations which share a common ancestor tend to increase as reproductive selection increases. In other words, in a population, the degree of divergence from the common ancestor is inversely related to the proportion of successfully reproducing organisms in the population.

15. In a population, the traits of the organisms with the greatest reproductive success will tend to increase, and the traits of those with the lowest reproductive success will tend to decrease.

Young Earth Creationists agree with all the above. This is what they are talking about when they refer to "microevolution". There is plenty of evidence that microevolution is happening all around us. Darwin did not discover these principles. Robert Bakewell (1725-1795) was systematically applying them to agriculture before Darwin was born. As you may know, Genesis 30:31-43 is an account of how Laban tried to use these principles to cheat his son-in-law Jacob, and of how Jacob used the same principles, along with some miraculously induced mutations, to prevail. (Please don't get "hung up" on the miraculously induced mutations. Whether you believe THEY occurred or not is beside the point. The point is that, at the time Genesis was written, the principles listed above were understood.)   What Darwin did was to suggest that these principles could, given enough time, transform a single population into both daffodils and donkeys (i.e., "macroevolution"). Young Earth Creationists are divided about whether or not this COULD happen (given enough time). The more important question, perhaps, is whether it DID happen.   The ideal way to determine that would be with an eyewitness. Obviously, that is exactly what the Torah, the Koran, and the Gospels claim that we have, a divine eyewitness. You certainly don't have to accept that claim, but that is the claim. Science can help us look for evidence for or against that claim but, ultimately, the question of what happenED is a question of history, not a question of science.

Kent
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