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A few years ago Tim Stafford published a book, the adam quest<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, where he interviewed eleven scientists who have wrestled with the mystery of human origins. After a brief introduction into his reasons for Tim jumps into the interviews, allowing the scientists to tell there stories. The first three scientists are young earth creationists, followed by a couple of proponents of intelligent design, and finally several scientists who favor evolutionary creation.<\/p>\nThe three young earth creationists are Kurt Wise, with a Ph.D. in paleontology from Harvard, Todd Wood with a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Virginia, and Georgia Purdom with a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from The Ohio State University. There is a running theme in the views presented by all three of these scholars. They are all convinced that proper interpretation of the Bible begins with Genesis and requires a young earth. Christian theology of creation, fall, redemption, requires it. As a high school student Wise went to the Bible and cut out the parts he thought evolution would undermine \u2013 and it gutted the Bible \u2026 \u201cwhen he lifted up the Bible, he had removed so much that the book fell apart in his hand.<\/em>\u201d (p. 14) Todd Wood \u201cbelieves that the theological core of the Bible \u2013 creation, fall, redemption \u2013 hangs on a young earth creationist interpretation.<\/em>\u201d (p. 45) Georgia Purdom is convinced that the necessity of death in the evolutionary mechanism rules it out of the realm of truth for Christians. \u201cEvolution portrayed millions of years of death, utterly detached from Scripture\u2019s emphasis on death coming through human sin. \u201cThat\u2019s clearly contradictory to Scripture, I knew that.\u201d<\/em>\u201d (p. 56)\u00a0 In Purdom\u2019s view this removes the responsibility for death from God and places it squarely on our shoulders. \u201cGod was not responsible, Death was not part of his plan.<\/em>\u201d (p. 57)<\/p>\n None of the three are quacks \u2013 and both Wise, who received his Ph.D. with Steven Jay Gould at Harvard, and Wood have become exasperated with creationist organizations that have continued to provide faulty information. Both Wood and Wise insist that science must be done properly with integrity. Wise, for example finds creationist apologetics something of a problem. Stafford writes:<\/p>\n After that, Wise lost interest in creationist apologetics, especially as he began to realize that many of the creationist evidences from his reading were wrong. \u201cAt first I thought it was ignorance.\u201d As he learned more though, he became convinced that the mistakes in creationist literature were willful. \u2026 Wise concluded that for many creationists the end justifies the means. For them, \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter if what you say is true. It matters if it brings people to the right conclusion.\u201d (p. 15-16)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Todd Wood is also quick to challenge poor arguments, believing that this is not the way forward. As Christians we should be seeking truth and telling lies will never get us to the truth.<\/p>\n Both Kurt Wise and Todd Wood have tried to establish a positive program to establish a framework that will work to integrate legitimate observations from the world around us with the young earth they believe must be God\u2019s truth and plan. While he was on the faculty at Bryan College Kurt Wise brought together colleagues to \u201cwork together toward a grand universal theory (GUT) comparable to evolution in its scale and scope.<\/em>\u201d (p. 21)\u00a0 Wise has insisted \u201cI am not an antievolutionist. I am a creationist. My life goal is to create a model that explains the world.<\/em>\u201d (quoted p. 21)\u00a0 Todd Wood has also burned some bridges in young earth circles by insisting that the evidence for evolution be treated with integrity. It does no good to claim that evolution is a theory in trouble\u00a0 when it isn\u2019t. Instead the effort needs to go into looking for a better and comprehensive theory that works within the young earth framework.<\/p>\n Many of the creationists\u2019 assertions missed the point, he realized, knocking down straw men. More fundamentally, science moved forward not by disproving theories but by advancing better ones. Creationism would win its argument when it demonstrated that it explained God\u2019s creation better than an evolutionary model. (p. 38)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Wood worked toward that goal while at Bryan. He continues to work in this direction as you can see at Todd\u2019s Blog<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Georgia Purdom has taken a different direction, working for Answers in Genesis and at the Creation Museum. Her focus appears to be on Christian apologetics. She is the resident expert in biology \u2013 although not an expert in evolutionary biology.<\/p>\n It is hard to fault Todd Wood or Kurt Wise. Convinced that Christian theology and reverence for the Holy Scriptures require a young earth, they are working in this direction. Georgia Purdom is equally sincere, but has focused on popular apologetics is a fashion that has left some Christian biologists unimpressed (eg. this post at Naturalis Historia<\/em><\/a> on Purdom\u2019s discussion of natural selection).<\/p>\n\n
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