Hi Dave,
Yeah, that's a fine point to make; how does one distinguish 'young' when one is criticising 'young earth creationism'? If W. Bradley, C. Thaxton, S. Meyer and Guillermo Gonzales all accept an Earth of 4.7 million plus years, does that make them 'young earth' proponents in contrast to someone who thinks the Earth is say 7 or 8 million years old? Or is a 1 million or 50,000 year estimate enough to qualify a person as a 'young earth' advocate? It seems that this was the point you're making, and it is a legitimate one.
Again, I'd encourage Rich to make a Top Ten List of IDists, as I suggested, and then to see if what he has been suggesting is true about ID leaders or not. He thinks 'intelligent design theory' leans towards 'young earth creationism,' while I think it leans decisively away from it, yet nevetheless leaves room for 'creationists' of many different stripes under its Big Tent. But let us see if Rich will put his wild comments to some rigour here by naming names.
I was in a room with about 30 young ID enthusiasts, and not more than one or two were YEC!
Obviously, if Rich uses the term 'theistic evolution', "just to have a label," it is possible he is also lacking some rigour in his personal (perhaps pre-conceived) insistence that ID must lean towards YEC.
But then again, maybe the problem for Rich is not *really* about the age of the Earth. But rather it is about *any* possibility of him *ever* accepting the label 'creationist,' even if it just means 'someone who thinks the universe was created by (a) God or Creator,' which I assume he does too! And if so, then I think this is a shame arising from the polemics of 20th century American discourse more than anything else.
We'll have to wait for his Top Ten (or even Top Five) List to see whether Rich will back up his words with something more concrete!
Cheers,
Gregory
________________________________
From: Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sun, November 15, 2009 2:08:20 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Two Amino Acid Difference in Gene May Explain Human Speech
Gregory Arago wrote:<!-- DIV {margin:0px;} -->
On the 'age of earth' single issue, I would guess that if you, Rich, personally made of List of who you think are the Top Ten ID proponents/advocates/theorists, etc. that no more than one or two (and depending on the List, maybe even zero!) believe in their heart of hearts in a 'young' earth.
Sometimes I think 4.7 billion years makes for a pretty young earth, especially when I think of all the variety of life, time needed to make oil and coal deposits etc.
Dave W
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Received on Sun Nov 15 10:48:57 2009
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