There is a religious doctrine of Young Earth Creationism (YEC), whereby some people believe that the Bible says that the earth was literally created about 6,000 years ago. I am not arguing that that doctrine is necessarily false. I am arguing that if it is true, then when God created the earth he put in place a vast amount of evidence that the earth is many millions of years old. Moreover, the evidence is well coordinated, in that diverse evidence points to a consistent time line for events in the earth’s history. The evidence cannot be explained by scientists having made just a few key mistakes.

“Look at that! Things like that don’t just happen. There must be something behind it, and I’ll tell you what it is.” This type of argument is called the Argument from Incredulity. This type of argument may be valid for provoking a further look, but it is never conclusive. Often a further look reveals fundamental errors in supposing just how unlikely the event actual is.

Most people, myself included, believe conspiracy theories like the 9/11 conspiracy are ridiculous. But if they are ridiculous, why isn’t it easy to prove to anyone that they are ridiculous? If one knew what the problems were in proving it, perhaps more plausible suppositions could be easily disproved. Here are some ground rules for arguing far-fetched contentions.

Creationism postulates that only a more complex entity can create a complex system. Since living organism are complex systems, there must therefore be a Creator that is more complex. Creationists argue that the theory is testable.