“The Creationist battle cry can be stated thus: Public ignorance is
Creationist bliss.” This is just one of the many attacks made against
Creationist in Richard Young’s article, “Why Creation ‘Science’ Must Be
Kept Out of the Classroom.” Throughout the article he uses many hasty
generalizations about creationist theories. The first hasty generalizations
Young makes are untrue statements about the Bible. He then uses states beliefs
that are true for only of a few Christians with extremist ideas, not the common
Christians view of Creationism. Young continues attacking Creationist by making
more hasty generalizations, and begging the question on why Creationism is a
weak argument compared to evolutionism. Finally, he tops all this off by
attacking the Creationist theories in using false analogies. The first hasty
generalization that Young makes is an attack on the Creationists’ views. He
claims that Creationists are extremists because they take the Bible literally.
The reason why he has a problem with taking the Bible literally is because of
his accusations of the Bible. He claims that the Bible says “that the earth is
flat, that all space flight has been hoaxed, that the Sun orbits the stationary
earth,” and other statements of this nature. The problem with this accusation
is that the Bible never makes any of these claims. Young then continues
attacking Creationist by saying: It is precisely this loss of faith [not taking
the Bible literally], alleged to have been caused by the proliferation of
‘evolutionary thought,’ that the creationist hold responsible for all the
evils of the world, including ‘sex education, alcohol, suicide, women’s
liberation, terrorism, homosexuality, inflation, socialism, racism and dirty
books.’ Judge Braswell Dean, a Georgia lobbyist for Creationism, lays an
equally comprehensive spectrum of crimes on the doorstep of evolution: …this
monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of abortions, permissiveness,
promiscuity, perversions, pregnancies, prophylactics, pornotherapy[sic],
pollution, poisoning and proliferation of crimes. These so-called
“Creationists” may have made these statements, but it is obvious that they
have misunderstood what the Bible says. The Bible states that sin originated
from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and problems have existed ever since
then. The problems in our society have nothing to do with the “monkey
mythology” that the judge states. From these points of hasty generalizations,
Young continues making more hasty generalizations and even begs the question of
the validity of creationism as a science. First he says that Creationism does
not offer any explanatory or predictive capabilities that the theory of
evolution has. This is not true. In fact, Creationism has a great explanation
for where the earth came from and how it will end up; the book of Genesis
explains how God created it and the book of Revelations predicts how it will end
up. After this statement, Young says that “What the Creationists present as a
science are in fact pseudoscience[sic], much like palmistry, astrology and the
alchemy of old. As a scientific alternative to evolution, Creationism is a
dismal failure.” Young does not give any reasons why; he leaves that question
up to us to figure out. Creationism has no similarities to the things to which
Young compares them. Creationism is not some cheesy science used to predict the
future of somebody’s life, and it is not some old science that has been proven
wrong. As a matter of fact, Creationism has many valid arguments. For example,
Ken Clark, writer of the Creation Outreach web-site, makes the point that
billions of fish are found in the fossil record with scales, fins, intact. They
were trapped suddenly and did not have time to rot or get eaten by scavengers.
This does not happen normally. The great Genesis Flood of Noah and the Ark is a
good explanation for these happenings and is one of many arguments for
Creationism. Later on in Young’s article he uses false analogies to argue
against Creationists problems with evolutionary theory. He questions the
Creationist understanding of the word ‘theory’ and then compares the
evolutionist theory to that of the theory of music and Newton’s laws. Young
says that the only difference between the evolutionist theory and Newton’s
laws are that in Newton’s time it was more fashionable to call theories laws.
This use of comparing theories is illogical; there is a huge difference between
the theory of music, Newton’s laws, and theory of evolution. The theory of
music is a term for the study of musical concepts and is accepted because it can
be proved, same with Newton’s laws. Newton’s laws are not called laws just
because that was more fashionable in his day, they are called laws because they
are proven facts, and whether or not one believes in them they do exist. This is
not the case with the theory of evolution otherwise there would not be any
debate on whether it is true. As one is able to see through the problems with
Young’s arguments against Creationism, the Creationist battle cry is not an
attempt to prey on the weak of mind. He tends to pull false statements about
Creationism out of his butt. Throughout Young’s argument he commits fallacy
after fallacy. From his many hasty generalizations to using false analogies and
begging the question, his whole argument against Creationism is based on biased
opinions.

BibliographyClark, Ken. “Creation Outreach.” Creation Outreach Homepage. 1997:n. pag.
Online. Microsoft Internet Explorer. 16 February 1999. The New American Bible.
Iowa Falls, IA: World Bible Producers, Inc., 1991. Young, Richard. “Why
Creation ‘Science’ Must Be Kept Out of the Classroom.” The Humanist
Association of Hamilton-Burlington Homepage. n. pag. Online. Microsoft Internet
Explorer. 26 February 1999