Creationist Dishonesty

This page documents creationist dishonesty. I am a Christian frustrated with the slander, lies, ignorance, and lack of concern for honesty among creationists that defames the name of Jesus Christ far worse than evolution ever could.

It's often asserted by Christians that both sides of the evolution debate are moved by philosphical preferences. This isn't true. Science is moved by evidence. Yes, there are dishonest scientists, but by and large the scientific method and the peer-review process weeds out dishonesty, whereas creationists have a pattern of dishonesty that is rarely corrected.

Answers in Genesis' Arguments We Don't Use is a refreshing—and growing!—exception.

Examples of Creationist Dishonesty

I'm simply going to list these with an explanation of what they are, then provide links to enough information to prove my assertions of dishonesty are true.

Lucy's Knee

My first encounter with creationist dishonesty was the story, told by Dr. Robert Gentry, that Dr. Donald Johanson used the Australopithecus afarensis Lucy's knee to prove that Lucy was bipedal, but failed to admit that he found the knee a mile and a half away from the rest of the skeleton and 200 feet lower. The whole charge is untrue, and could easily have been proven untrue by simply reading Johanson's book.

A Tale of Two Cites

The senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History was misquoted by Dr. Carl Wieland of the Creation Science Foundation in Australia. When someone wrote the paleontologist, Dr. Colin Patterson, to verify his quote, the CSF misquoted the reply as well!

Charles Darwin confessed that it seems absurd that an eye could evolve

Charles Darwin did say this. He then went on to explain why it is not absurd, and he gave a very feasible explanation for how the eye evolved.

Transitional fossils (missing links) are rare

This is two bits of dishonesty. First, transitional fossils are far from rare, and anyone who does 10 minutes of research has to know that. The link in this heading provides abundant examples and links to many more. Second, Answers in Genesis and other creationists quote Stephen Jay Gould regularly as saying that they were rare, despite the fact that Gould replied publicly with, "It is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups" (reference).
     Evolutionists have pointed out that every time a fossil is found that fills a gap, two more gaps are immediately created that creationists use to say there are no transitional forms!

A change of 3 nucleotides in the genome is fatal

I just saw this quoted by Kent Hovind in a debate with Ben Waggoner. A search for that quote on Google yields all creationist sites. Fortunately, one of them has the actual quote!

The recent decoding of the human genome has allowed scientists to determine that cystic fibrosis is caused by a random change of three nucleotides ... Since a random change of three nucleotides in a three-billion-part genome is fatal ... (icr.org)

Is what he's saying apparent? If the random change of 3 nucleotides happens to be the exact mutation that produces cystic fibrosis, then that change is eventually fatal. It's really not very honest to quote this creationist—Dr. Barney Maddox is a creationist—as saying that any change of 3 nucleotides is fatal, as that's not remotely true. In fact, genetics.org believes that the average mutation rate is 175 nucleotides per genome for one generation.
     It took me no more than about 5 minutes to get all this information. Is it really unavailable to the people who are misquoting Dr. Maddox, or do they just not care what's true?

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