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Episode 437: Ham on Phil - A Brief History of Young Earth Creationism


Recently, Young Earth Creation (YEC) champion Ken Ham took exception to Phil's statement that Ham "rejects mainstream science." In the flurry of social media activity that followed, a number of YEC experts took Phil to task, claiming he was wrong on several facts. Phil dug deeper and realized he WAS in fact wrong on a couple of things, but right on a bunch more.


So this week Phil lays out what he got wrong and what he got right as we take a deep dive into the fascinating history of the movement called "Creation Science," or Ken Ham-style "Young Earth Creationism."

Buckle up! It's a fun one!


55 Comments


Caitlin McHale
Caitlin McHale
Jun 02, 2021

I just watched episodes 88 and 89 where the Ken v. Nye debate was discussed and I think it puts this post into perspective even more. Phil refused to say he did not believe in YEC in episode 89 but he seems to be clear on that now.


I wasn't aware of YEC or Ken Ham until I listened to this around the time it came out. Ken Ham surely has done a lot of work on the subject! As I watched this episode, I didn't have much of an opinion as it was new to me, but I did have a recurring thought, which is that what Phil was discussing is not what I think of when I hear…


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Gary Vaterlaus
Gary Vaterlaus
Mar 03, 2021

Jason Lisle points out the historical errors of this episode and exposes these guys for what they are: Biblical Science Institute |

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Meredith Lawser
Meredith Lawser
Feb 03, 2021

Any chance you will put together a transcript of this episode? Or maybe a timeline of the historical events that you mentioned? There is a lot of content here and I'd really like the time to be able to study it effectively.

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Bob Enyart
Bob Enyart
Jan 15, 2021

Here's a somewhat "neutral" thing! A clickable list of 50+ peer-reviewed papers published in the world's leading science journals documenting dinosaur soft tissue including still intact soft and pliable blood vessels, red blood cells, etc., and another 50+ documenting biomaterial fossils of other kinds of organisms allegedly as old as 2 billion years. Hmm. That's at bflist.rsr.org. Oh yeah, and they not only have un-permineralized still-soft original biological material, some of these fossils are also loaded with short-lived carbon 14 (which is everywhere it's not supposed to be) and mostly left-handed, that is, unracemized amino acids. That's a triple threat to deep time with all involving different physics and incredibly difficult to explain!

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aubs
aubs
Jan 12, 2021

Wow, I'm surprised at the comments on here. I'm guessing a lot of y'all aren't regular HP listeners. 😂 Phil, I want you to know you aren't the terrible person some of them they're making you out to be. That being said, as someone who didn't even know there were other viable Christian options besides YEC until literally this episode, I would have appreciated a gentler approach. I felt like the worldview I'd grown up with was being callously ripped to shreds right in front of me. This is a dearly held belief to a lot of people and I sort of felt like I was being portrayed as stupid for believing something that was always the only thing I'd ever…


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lucidhysteria
Jun 01, 2021
Replying to

If more people on the internet thought and spoke like you, this world would be a much better place. Sadly, I didn't know there were responsible, orthodox Christian alternatives to YEC myself until I read about them in Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology a good 10 years ago or so. If you aren't familiar with him, Grudem is a very conservative theologian, author, and teacher, who wrote one of the most popular systematic theologies (and was general editor of the ESV Study Bible, among other notable roles in evangelicalism), and his chapter on creation issues opened up a whole can of words that I can say, looking back, helped to free me from an unhelpful view of science and the Bible. A…

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