Answers in Genesis
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In 1993, after 7 years in the US working with the [[Institute for Creation Research]], former Australian high-school science teacher Ken Ham decided to start a creation science ministry similar to the [[Creation Ministries International|Creation Science Foundation]] (now Creation Ministries International) he had founded back in Australia, because he felt that the IRC were too "intellectual" and what was needed was a more layman's approach to teaching creation science. Also, he wanted to sell his magazines, but IRC would not help him. | In 1993, after 7 years in the US working with the [[Institute for Creation Research]], former Australian high-school science teacher Ken Ham decided to start a creation science ministry similar to the [[Creation Ministries International|Creation Science Foundation]] (now Creation Ministries International) he had founded back in Australia, because he felt that the IRC were too "intellectual" and what was needed was a more layman's approach to teaching creation science. Also, he wanted to sell his magazines, but IRC would not help him. | ||
| − | The first snag in the road is that in the US a foundation has to give away money, so he called it the Creation Science Ministries. The second snag was he had no money. According to CMI they gave significant financial support to Ham to start his new US ministry.<ref>[http://creation.com/about-us#what_we_are CMI's about us.]</ref> According to AiG, they | + | The first snag in the road is that in the US a foundation has to give away money, so he called it the Creation Science Ministries. The second snag was he had no money. According to CMI they gave significant financial support to Ham to start his new US ministry.<ref>[http://creation.com/about-us#what_we_are CMI's about us.]</ref> According to AiG, they needed no such thing and had plenty of money thank you.<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/about/history AiG's history page.]</ref> In 1995 both of Ken's ministries changed their names to become Answers in Genesis-US and Answers in Genesis-Australia. For many years they were pretty much the same organisation even generating a common [[/Statement of faith|Statement of Faith]] that was suppose to bind the two. |
By 2005 a huge split occurred between the two, with the Australian organisation viewing the US as anti-intellectual and disorganised. The Australian branch withdrew and became Creation Ministries International, taking with it all the non-US branches (mostly Canada, New Zealand and South Africa). | By 2005 a huge split occurred between the two, with the Australian organisation viewing the US as anti-intellectual and disorganised. The Australian branch withdrew and became Creation Ministries International, taking with it all the non-US branches (mostly Canada, New Zealand and South Africa). | ||
Revision as of 01:09, 28 November 2009
Answers in Genesis. You will never find a more wretched hive of creationist pseudoscience and silliness. They run (into the ground it would seem[1]) the Creation Museum and publish the Answers Research Journal.[2] Considered the leaders of creationist "research" online, Answers in Genesis will invariably be linked to by creationists to prove points. If you have a percieved fallacy in creationism, AiG will have the answer, Talk Origins will have the refutation, and AiG will have the refutation of the refutation (which is probably just a restatement of the original piece).[3]
The head of Answers in Genesis is Ken Ham.
Contents |
History
In 1993, after 7 years in the US working with the Institute for Creation Research, former Australian high-school science teacher Ken Ham decided to start a creation science ministry similar to the Creation Science Foundation (now Creation Ministries International) he had founded back in Australia, because he felt that the IRC were too "intellectual" and what was needed was a more layman's approach to teaching creation science. Also, he wanted to sell his magazines, but IRC would not help him.
The first snag in the road is that in the US a foundation has to give away money, so he called it the Creation Science Ministries. The second snag was he had no money. According to CMI they gave significant financial support to Ham to start his new US ministry.[4] According to AiG, they needed no such thing and had plenty of money thank you.[5] In 1995 both of Ken's ministries changed their names to become Answers in Genesis-US and Answers in Genesis-Australia. For many years they were pretty much the same organisation even generating a common Statement of Faith that was suppose to bind the two.
By 2005 a huge split occurred between the two, with the Australian organisation viewing the US as anti-intellectual and disorganised. The Australian branch withdrew and became Creation Ministries International, taking with it all the non-US branches (mostly Canada, New Zealand and South Africa).
In 2007 AiG opened it's now infamous Creation Museum and in 2008, having lost Creation magazine and The Journal of Creation in the split, it started its own creation research journal Answers Research Journal.
A representative argument from AiG
The AiG-commissioned comic pictured at right is representative of their approach to science, their method of scientific analysis going something like this:
- Look at the evidence.
- See if it jives with the Bible.
- If it does, go nuts over it.
- If it does not, it is like Cthulhu, capable of eating people and Bibles; ignore it.
Bad arguments even AiG recognise
- See also PRATT
AiG isn't considered as having some of the best of creationist research for nothing, they do employ people who have genuinely thought this through, although in most cases, not enough. Their "Arguments we think creationists should NOT use", for example, makes interesting - indeed surprising - reading. Their examples of bad creationist arguments include:[6]
- Darwin recanted on his deathbed.
- Moon-dust thickness proves a young moon.
- The Japanese trawler Zuiyo Maru caught a dead plesiosaur near New Zealand.
- Archaeopteryx is a fraud.
- Darwin mentioned the absurdity of eye evolution in The Origin of Species.
- Evolution is just a theory.
Many of these have been refuted so often and so easily that AiG really had no choice but to issue an article like this. But you can still find people using such silly and unconvincing arguments; the owners and contributers of most other creationist websites and blogs might do well to read some of these.
Answers in WTF?
In spring 2009, AiG managed to get itself into a small(ish) controversy by shifting its publicity focus from creationism to the denigration of atheism in general. This resulted in a billboard and TV advertising campaign featuring a young boy pointing a gun straight at the viewer, stating "If God doesn't matter to him, do you?", thus implying that atheists, agnostics, or basically any non-Christian would be prone to murder.[7] AiG claim that this was to highlight school shootings and their so-called links with Darwinism, but it's quite clear that they were just pissed off after atheists decided to get their own billboard.
This attitude of comparing atheism with school shootings is not isolated to their campaign. Their resident cartoonist Dan Lietha has produced a cartoon with very similar content. This indicates that this campaign was a sincere statement of AiG's belief, rather than an intentionally controversial, shock-value publicity stunt.
See also
- Creation Ministries International
- Essay:AiG - Exploiting Credulous Fools Since 1995
- Answers in Genesis Dawkins interview controversy
- Conservapedia:Arguments creationists shouldn't use
- Play Day for Creationists
- AiG's "Statement of Faith"
Footnotes
- ↑ AiG begs for the cash needed to keep the Creation Museum open.
- ↑ Answers Research Journal
- ↑ Online debates on the subject are just reduced to Answers in Genesis vs Talk.Origins.
- ↑ CMI's about us.
- ↑ AiG's history page.
- ↑ AIG - Arguments we think creationists should NOT use.
- ↑ Christianist (sic) Group's Billboard Compares Atheism To Murder

