Episode Details

Dr Joel Duff helps us critique Young Earth Creationist and Intelligent Design ideas about predation strategies in particular, and science in general

This week, we talked to Dr. Joel Duff about the focus of our previous episodes on venomous snakes and the Green Jewel Wasp.  Joel not only has decades of experience at a state university doing hands-on research and teaching in biology and genetics, he also hosts a blog site and YouTube channel focusing on how Young Earth Creationists either resist science or distort it.  It was one of their articles which prompted him to write a blog post — and us to release the previous two podcast episodes — on examples of “defense and attack structures.”

We compared Joel’s observations about Young Earth Creationists with our own about Intelligent Design proponents, and found that:

• their explanations of evolutionary changes are poorly thought out, raise many more problems than they solve, and often invoke magical thinking;

• some of their arguments really end up making the version of God they’re trying to protect look malicious, vindictive, and capricious;

• their spokespeople invariably have no expertise in the areas about which they’re talking/writing, and a large number of them have little or no training in science at all;

• many arguments keep coming up again and again, even though those arguments have been soundly refuted by world-leading experts in the respective areas;

• their leaders, writers, and “scientists” do not engage directly with the scientific community, nor respond to feedback from that community.

Joel also gave us some perspectives on personnel-shuffling and leadership changes going on at Answers-in-Genesis, their up-coming fund-raising and building projects, and how it seems their mission and strategy are moving away from confronting scientific challenges to Christian faith, and toward creating theme parks and home entertainment programming.

As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …

Find out more about Dr. Joel Duff at his faculty website or his blog site, or

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