Secular Response to a New Creationist Science Journal

The Creation Museum certainly provided quite a splash, and the protests and mockeries continue to reverberate around the world. Apparently we hit a nerve by presenting compelling evidence for a recent creation and global Flood in a manner that appeals to people of various technical levels.

"...creationists still try to discourage the teaching of evolution and other scientific theories..."

After the launch of Answers Research Journal, our free, online resource for the timely dissemination of creationist research, blogs were again atwitter with ridicule, slander, and outright animosity. There is even talk of a competition for “fake” papers to be submitted to see how rigorous our peer-review process is (care to find out?). In all, we were excited that God used such negative attacks to spread the message of ARJ’s launch around the world.

However, we were even more surprised to find that the prestigious journal Nature has taken notice in an upcoming issue. The editorial, of course, is hardly flattering, and Associate Editor Geoff Brumfiel lets his opinion be known. In particular, Brumfiel states:

Recent court rulings make it all but impossible for intelligent design, a belief that a higher being shaped evolution, to be taught in US public schools. Nevertheless, creationists still try to discourage the teaching of evolution and other scientific theories at the local level, according to Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, an education watchdog in Oakland, California. Publications such as ARJ are part of the continued battle to excise science from local curricula, she says. “Creation science is alive and well and appealing to a substantial minority of the American public.”

You can read the entire “editorial” on Nature’s website, but one thing you won’t find there is anyone asking someone from AiG for our view on Dr. Scott’s explanation of ARJ. If they wanted a spokesperson of equal academic rigor, they would find no shortage—say, for example, Dr. David Menton, professor emeritus at Washington University School of Medicine or even Dr. Andrew Snelling, the eminently qualified editor-in-chief of the journal. AiG has never tried to “discourage the teaching of evolution,” as we have repeatedly stated. We want students to learn about evolution, but we want them also to learn that some researchers do not agree with Darwin’s theory and the reasons why. ARJ’s purpose, in fact, has nothing to do with the creation/evolution debate whatever—though that may seem shocking to those who cannot believe that people can function or research without appealing to the theory—and is, instead, about building the Creation model. Yes, research can, is, and will be done in biology, geology, astronomy, and all fields of science without the slightest need for millions of years or evolution. We are glad that the readers of Nature will be able to find out about our new journal, and we hope that what was meant to mock will instead fuel interest in our site. After all, God has definitely used such attacks on AiG before.