Creationist site "Answers in Genesis" have just launched their new "Answers Research Journal", attracting some rave reviews, such as this poetic assessment from one of my favourite bloggers: "The entire article is nothing more than theocratic masturbation, not science, and like masturbation, they should probably do it in private, rather than clogging our precious intertubes with their rantings". Let's take a look!

The Website:
The website is a masterpiece, and I'm not being sarcastic. It is a clone of the best journal sites, and is better than the sites of a lot of real journals - clear, neat, effective. A lot of people on the pro-science side of the fence need a kick up the backside when it comes to presentation, these guys clearly don't.

Once you get past the style though, the effect is a bit like watching Star Trek's Data trying to be more human. They've heard of science, they've read about it in a book, and now they're going to act "scientific". They know its definition, but they don't understand what it means.

And so we have the journal's motto - "building the creation model", and its Call For Papers stating "Answers Research Journal will provide scientists and students the results of cutting-edge research that demonstrates the validity of the young-earth model, the global Flood, the non-evolutionary origin of “created kinds,” and other evidences that are consistent with the biblical account of origins".

Nobody seems to have told them that starting out with a result and then finding the evidence that proves it to be correct is not research, nor science, nor even a sensible way of building a creationist theory.

The Papers:
It's immediately noticeable that there are only 4 papers in this edition, with only 4 authors, one of whom is in fact the editor, Snelling.

I'll look mostly at the first paper on biology. I would do them all, but life is too short and my area is biology, so I'll leave the "earth is 5000 years old" to the geologists, and historians can enjoy the fourth and final paper, praising Louis Pasteur for being a good Christian and trying to make some laboured comparison between spontaneous generation and evolution.

The third one - well I'm not sure what the hell field that's in, but from the title - "An Apology and Unification Theory for the Reconciliation of Physical Matter and Metaphysical Cognizance", I think it was written by that software they made to auto-generate Philosophy papers.

"...a theory is set forth that reconciles inorganic, organic, and animated matter with the metaphysical realities of both the creator and the created. By coupling the metaphysical implications of quantum physics with the biblical understanding of God’s attributes, the thesis is set forth that our immediate physical reality—consisting of empty space, electromagnetic energy, and information—is basically a hologram depiction of God’s intent. God spoke and it was so. Since creation, God’s Spirit has continued to energize and interact with the universe in an entangled nature at the quantum level. Similarly, the individual metaphysical reality (the spirit) of each animated being interacts with its individual corporal body via this same entangled nature at the subatomic level."

It's funny, I was chatting to a stoner down the pub the other day and he told me exactly the same thing.

So the one actual biology paper is written by Alan Gillen, who calls himself a Professor of Biology but in fact is based at a fundamentalist bible school, Liberty University. He asks the question that's been driving everyone nuts, "...where do microbes fit into the creation account? Were they created along with the rest of the plants and animals in the first week of creation, or were they created later, after the Fall."

Germs and parasites are easy. Since the Garden of Eden only catered to man, fruit and cuddly things, these degenerate little bastards must have come after the fall. Indeed, the "Edenic Curse would have profoundly influenced all creation".

Apparently, "infectious diseases and pathogenesis are a secondary state in nature. It is not the way the Creator intended for man and nature". Someone should tell that to the germs, and really God should have had a bit more foresight.

"Most microbes are beneficial to man and nature. Only about 5–10% of all bacteria are pathogenic", he speculates wildly, not bothering with any pesky references. It seems to escape him that all microbes are beneficial to some nature... or by nature does he mean man? But hold on, man is unnatural anyway because nature isn't the way God intended and... and... and... *reset*

Don't worry though, he's done some thinking, and the timings are actually obvious. "Upon further reflection on the origin of microbes,I realized that ... God created individual microbes in discrete packages on several days (i.e., the plant-like microbes on Day Three, the animal-like microbes with the animals, etc., on Days Five and Six). Each bacteria, fungi, and protozoan “kind” was made individually on Days Three, Five, and Six, just like plants, animals, and humans". Sorted!

At this point, somebody should probably tell him that many microbes are neither plant not animal, but that would deeply screw up his reasoning, and we can't possibly have that if we're going to forcibly build the right model...