Are Young Earth Creationists Generally Stupid?

Oh you weren't hurting my feelings. If you think saying my ideas are 'dumb' instead of 'wrong' is not rude, I'm hardly interested in disputing what's 'rude'. My point was not about hurting my feelings, it was about 'making a case', as was obvious from my words. Calling my idea 'dumb' doesn't make a case for anything. Now you are talking about my 'tender feelings'. Why?

He does if he wants to call what he's doing science. Since he isn't, he can't call it science.

Boundary conditions occuring a few thousand years ago are not observable today, they cannot be in anyones memory, or in a family or cultural tradition that does not go back into legend or myth.

And here I thought it was me who pointed that out. No, a lot initial conditions would have to be set after the Genesis account. Genes would have to change at a supernatural rate as people migrated from the location of Genesis. People would have to settle into pre-existing human settlements. It is undeniably ugly.

That would depend on how you define 'fossil' and 'femur'. When I say you see what is there, I am not talking about definitions which might or might not exclude something that was created 6000 years ago. I am talking about the object which lies before you, waiting to be picked up. It is there, it is real. Whether it is the remains of an animal or it was created 6000 years ago is not something which is an inherent part of it.

I'm a non-YEC myself. Am I breaking some rules here?

Whatever works is good.

If a person converts to sophisticated YEC, he is still a Christian, and he is now someone who is not an embarrassment to Christianity for attacking scientists and trying to affect the teaching of science. So if that works as an alternative to giving up YEC, it could not be anything but good.

I'm afraid that the sophisticated YEC, while no longer an impediment to good science education, would still be an embarrassment. No scientist is going to view anyone who dismisses the entire observable universe as a mock-up of a history that never happened, solely to preserve a naive reading of a religious text, as anything other than a deluded fool. Given the choice between someone who deludes himself about what physical reality looks like, and someone who rejects that reality entirely, I don't know which I'd prefer.

I'm afraid that the sophisticated YEC, while no longer an impediment to good science education, would still be an embarrassment. No scientist is going to view anyone who dismisses the entire observable universe as a mock-up of a history that never happened, solely to preserve a naive reading of a religious text, as anything other than a deluded fool. Given the choice between someone who deludes himself about what physical reality looks like, and someone who rejects that reality entirely, I don't know which I'd prefer.

And in either case it is a denial of the reality of creation, which makes it ironic that those who espouse such views call themselves creationists.

I do see the deep disconnect between this view and traditional Christians views of the world and of creation that you have pointed out.

holding to such an odd hotch-potch of literalism, omphalos, and pseudo-science ...

... that if that skeleton were to get out then they'd be just as damaging and embarrassing as the outspoken fundamentalist YEC.

It also seems to me to be rather condescending to say to somebody, what you believe is perfectly true and acceptable in your own little world but don't think about trying to join in with the adults doing science.

And why would you try to convince somebody of such a messy half-way house type belief when you could be trying to convince them of something much more logically consistent?

No, we have the pseudo science now. Sophisticated YEC is all about getting rid of the psuedo science.

And replace it with...? Non-science?

That is why sophisticated YEC cannot, by definition, be science.

The experiments and reasoning used to draw conclusions would be identical. The only difference would be an underlying philosophy that has no bearing on the actual conduct of the science.

And they can do science.

From their point of view they are researching what it looks like, just as we all are. The only difference is that they believe that the true boundary conditions are derived from Genesis, but they understand that God created a reality that can be consistently examined by science, which uses Occam's razor, and they would enjoy doing so because it is interesting, just as we suspend our beliefs to enjoy a movie even though we believe that it is false. I said this before.