 | This biographical article is written like a résumé .(November 2021) |
Andrew A. Snelling is a young-Earth creationist geologist who works for Answers in Genesis. [1]
| This biographical article is written like a résumé .(November 2021) |
Andrew A. Snelling is a young-Earth creationist geologist who works for Answers in Genesis. [1]
Snelling has a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Sydney from 1982. [2] [3]
He was, for a decade, the geology spokesman for the Creation Science Foundation, the coordinating center for creationism in Australia. [4] He started working for Answers in Genesis in 2007 [5] and serves as AiG's director of research. [2]
Snelling has been published in standard geological publications estimating the age of geological specimens in billions of years, but has also written articles for creationist journals in which he supports a young-earth creationism viewpoint. [4] He worked in the RATE project. [6]
Snelling appeared in the 2017 creationist documentary film Is Genesis History?
Snelling, like other young-Earth creationists, believes the Grand Canyon formed as a result of the Biblical flood; In 2013 Snelling applied for a permit to collect 50-60 half-pound rocks from the park. [1] [7] [3] The application was denied because the National Park Service screens applications to take material from the Grand Canyon, to protect it. One of the three geologists who reviewed the proposal for the National Park Service stated that the type of rock Snelling was trying to test could be found outside the park, and all three reviewers made it clear they did not consider the proposal scientifically valid. [1]
Snelling submitted a revised proposal in 2016. [8] In a letter dated May 5, 2017, the NPS said it found the application acceptable and it was willing to grant it if changes were made to locations and methods of collecting rocks; Snelling proposed to chisel away rocks and to do so from highly visible rock faces, to take samples from land that was not parkland but rather was on an Indian reservation and also from another location that was likely to have archeological remains. [9] The NPS had authorized a river trip for Snelling to survey locations but not to collect specimens; Snelling objected that this would take too much time and expense, and in response in the May 5 letter, the NPS offered to have staff work with Snelling to map locations in a meeting or conference call. [9]
On May 9, 2017, Snelling, with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against the United States Department of the Interior and the Grand Canyon National Park authorities, citing the Trump administration's executive order of May 4, 2017 about religious liberty. [1] [10] [7] In late June 2017 Answers in Genesis released a statement saying the National Park authorities had issued Snelling a permit to collect rock samples, and that Snelling had withdrawn the lawsuit. [2] [9] [11] Snelling's attorneys did not provide a copy of the permit to a reporter from the Phoenix New Times who requested it. [11]
Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible. It is often presented without overt faith-based language, but instead relies on reinterpreting scientific results to argue that various myths in the Book of Genesis and other select biblical passages are scientifically valid. The most commonly advanced ideas of creation science include special creation based on the Genesis creation narrative and flood geology based on the Genesis flood narrative. Creationists also claim they can disprove or reexplain a variety of scientific facts, theories and paradigms of geology, cosmology, biological evolution, archaeology, history, and linguistics using creation science. Creation science was foundational to intelligent design.
Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between about 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. In its most widespread version, YEC is based on the religious belief in the inerrancy of certain literal interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Its primary adherents are Christians and Jews who believe that God created the Earth in six literal days.
The antediluvian period is the time period chronicled in the Bible between the fall of man and the Genesis flood narrative in biblical cosmology. The term was coined by Thomas Browne. The narrative takes up chapters 1–6 of the Book of Genesis. The term found its way into early geology and science until the late Victorian era. Colloquially, the term is used to refer to any ancient and murky period.
Day-age creationism, a type of old Earth creationism, is an interpretation of the creation accounts in Genesis. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not literal 24-hour days, but are much longer periods. The Genesis account is then reconciled with the age of the Earth. Proponents of the day-age theory can be found among both theistic evolutionists, who accept the scientific consensus on evolution, and progressive creationists, who reject it. The theories are said to be built on the understanding that the Hebrew word yom is also used to refer to a time period, with a beginning and an end and not necessarily that of a 24-hour day.
Flood geology is a pseudoscientific attempt to interpret and reconcile geological features of the Earth in accordance with a literal belief in the Genesis flood narrative, the flood myth in the Hebrew Bible. In the early 19th century, diluvial geologists hypothesized that specific surface features provided evidence of a worldwide flood which had followed earlier geological eras; after further investigation they agreed that these features resulted from local floods or from glaciers. In the 20th century, young-Earth creationists revived flood geology as an overarching concept in their opposition to evolution, assuming a recent six-day Creation and cataclysmic geological changes during the biblical flood, and incorporating creationist explanations of the sequences of rock strata.
Answers in Genesis (AiG) is an American fundamentalist Christian apologetics parachurch organization. It advocates young Earth creationism on the basis of its literal, historical-grammatical interpretation of the Book of Genesis and the Bible as a whole. Out of belief in biblical inerrancy, it rejects the results of scientific investigations that contradict their view of the Genesis creation narrative and instead supports pseudoscientific creation science. The organization sees evolution as incompatible with the Bible and believes anything other than the young Earth view is a compromise on the principle of biblical inerrancy.
The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas, that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical event. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as religious and moral truths, and espouses a Young Earth creationist worldview. It rejects evolutionary biology, which it views as a corrupting moral and social influence and threat to religious belief. The ICR was formed by Henry M. Morris in 1972 following an organizational split with the Creation Science Research Center (CSRC).
The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young Earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris that, according to historian Ronald Numbers, elevated young Earth creationism "to a position of fundamentalist orthodoxy".
Henry Madison Morris was an American young Earth creationist, Christian apologist and engineer. He was one of the founders of the Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research. He is considered by many to be "the father of modern creation science". He coauthored The Genesis Flood with John C. Whitcomb in 1961.
In creationism, a religious view based on a literal reading of the Book of Genesis and other biblical texts, created kinds are purported to be the original forms of life as they were created by God. They are also referred to in creationist literature as kinds, original kinds, Genesis kinds, and baramins.
Grand Canyon: A Different View is a 2003 book edited by Tom Vail. The book features a series of photographs of the Grand Canyon illustrating 20 essays by creationists Steve Austin, John Baumgardner, Duane Gish, Ken Ham, Russell Humphreys, Henry Morris, John D. Morris, Andrew A. Snelling, Larry Vardiman, John Whitcomb, and Kurt Wise. It presents the Young Earth creationist perspective that the canyon is no more than a few thousand years old and was formed by the Global Flood or Noachian flood of the Bible.
Robert Vance Gentry was an American young Earth creationist and nuclear physicist, known for his claims that radiohalos provide evidence for a young age of the Earth.
Creation Ministries International (CMI) is a nonprofit organisation that promotes the pseudoscience of young Earth creationism. It has branches in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Leonard Brand is an American biologist, paleontologist, and Seventh-day Adventist creationist. He is a professor and past chair of Loma Linda University Department of Earth and Biological Sciences. Brand's most widely debated research was regarding fossil tracks at the Grand Canyon.
The Creation and Earth History Museum is a young earth creationist promotional facility opened by the Institute for Creation Research at its original headquarters in Santee, California in 1992, replacing an earlier museum located in the institute's basement. It cost $50,000, and took 2 years to complete.
The International Conference on Creationism (ICC) is a conference in support of young earth creationism, sponsored by the Creation Science Fellowship (CSF). The first conference occurred in 1986 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Subsequent conferences have been held in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018.
Scriptural geologists were a heterogeneous group of writers in the early nineteenth century, who claimed "the primacy of literalistic biblical exegesis" and a short Young Earth time-scale. Their views were marginalised and ignored by the scientific community of their time. They "had much the same relationship to 'philosophical' geologists as their indirect descendants, the twentieth-century creationists." Paul Wood describes them as "mostly Anglican evangelicals" with "no institutional focus and little sense of commonality". They generally lacked any background in geology, and had little influence even in church circles.
The Genesis flood narrative is a Hebrew flood myth. It tells of God's decision to return the universe to its pre-creation state of watery chaos and remake it through the microcosm of Noah's ark.
Is Genesis History? is a 2017 American Christian film by Thomas Purifoy Jr. that promotes the pseudoscientific notion of Young Earth creationism, a form of creation science built on beliefs that contradict established scientific facts regarding the origin of the Universe, the age of the Earth and universe, the origin of the Solar System, and the origin and evolution of life. The film suggests the Earth was created in six days of 24-hours each in opposition to day-age creationism, and also advocates the Genesis biblical narratives of Adam and Eve, the Fall, the global flood, and the tower of Babel. It grossed $2.6 million in theaters and $3.3 million in video sales.
The ICR Discovery Center for Science & Earth History is a creationist museum in Dallas, Texas. Owned and operated by the Institute for Creation Research, the museum opened on September 2, 2019, with 1,600 people visiting on its first day.