Young Earth Evolution, Todd Wood, and Me
by Cowboy Bob Sorensen
This is an article I would rather not write, but my experiences and thoughts may be useful to others. Maybe I will get insight from them. A spell back, I was confused by Dr. Todd Wood who appeared in the creation science film Is Genesis History.
Well, it was afterward that I was confused. He seemed to be advocating for baryons-to-biochemist evolution. After a bit of investigation, I wrote an article discussing both my confusion and also about a video he made that seemed to settle things.
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| Todd Wood with Del Tackett, Is Genesis History screenshot, modified with FotoSketcher |
They were doing a series on young-earth evolution, which is something new to me. The idea seems contradictory, because evolution demands deep time and a denial of the Genesis Flood. Dr. Wood was discussed in several of these articles. It appears that my efforts to give him the benefit of the doubt were wrong.
The article that somewhat defended him (linked above) involved some checking on my part, but Answers in Genesis dug quite a bit deeper. Perhaps I should have done more research as well, but I wanted to believe that Wood was a genuine creationist who had simply expressed himself poorly and needed to clarify things. Some of the concerns expressed in that other article have come back.
I had hoped that by waiting, Todd would respond to these AiG articles and this new one of mine would not be needed. The first article appeared 20 January and I am writing this on 15 April 2023, so he has had plenty of time to respond to at least some of the articles.
Although this is distressing to me, I have to cowboy up and face the problem. Dr. Wood is a creationist and a Christian. What kind of creationist, I am uncertain. He appears to be misguided, and he must take those article seriously. How many other Christians and creationists have been confused by his activities that make Darwin smile? He has a weblog and can use it, so... Again, I am a nobody, but at least I have this here weblog and can write things up. Mayhaps someone will pass this from-the-heart article along to him.
But I have to pull back on the reins and say, "Whoa." It is fair to consider if Answers in Genesis has done all their homework, since I didn't notice them discussing the "Are You Crazy?" video, nor did they mention his article against fideism — something he's been accused of, and apparently with justification. Were they thorough enough? Maybe. Do they have impure motives and tainted their research? I doubt it, and someone making such an accusation would have to back up that claim.
Todd can clear things up one way or another in his podcast or weblog. I hope he will.
To see why all the hubbub, Bub, take a serious look at these articles. (Readers of The Question Evolution Project should recognize them since they were posted there. You're welcome, AiG.) The entire series is linked at the bottom of the first one, but those that discussed Dr. Wood are listed below.
- Should Biblical Creation Become More Like Evolution?
- Christianity Is Objectively True
- How Much Evidence Is There for Evolution?
- Transitional Fossils: Evidence for Evolution?
- Also, an article at Creation Ministries International raised the question of fideism, mixing creation with evolution, and other things in the PDF, "A rather pro-evolutionary author who mischaracterizes evolutionary transitional forms."