Todd Wood is a fascinating individual to me. He's a creationist with a Biology degree and PhD in Biochemistry. He also rejects biological evolution insofar as common descent and the explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. Yet at the same time, he appears to be one of the few creationists I've seen who is also honest about the state of biology and the biological sciences.
For instance he has famously written this on his blog (which has been quoted here a number of times):
Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well. (emphasis in original text)
http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html
I also found this fascinating from his writing on the chimp genome when he references the oft-repeated "similarity = common design" claim you hear from creationists:
As mentioned already, the common creationist response to this argument is to appeal to a designer as the source of the similarity. Although this is undoubtedly true, it is trivial. The point Darwin makes is not that similarity alone indicates common ancestry but that the particular pattern or scheme of similarities across all organisms is the same pattern we would expect from common descent. As Darwin noted in the quote above, appealing to the will of the Creator does not explain the particular pattern of similarity that we observe, except in an ad hoc fashion. Creation biology needs an explanation of the pattern of similarities, not merely an ad hoc appeal to a common designer.
(
THE CHIMPANZEE GENOME AND THE PROBLEM OF BIOLOGICAL SIMILARITY)
Rarely do I see creationists present an understanding that is it specific patterns that yield evidence for common descent, not mere similarity. And I can appreciate his criticism of the common creationist response to common descent, since arbitrary appeals to design effectively explain nothing.
What I don't understand is why more creationists don't share Todd Wood's thinking. While he obviously rejects biological evolution (common descent) based on his writings, he also clearly has some understanding of the science behind it and accepts the reality of modern biological science.
He also seems to recognize that creationists need to do a lot better than simply "Goddidit" when it comes to a presenting a competing explanation for biological diversity. And while I doubt that will ever be the case, it is still refreshing to see a creationist with a more honest approach to the subject.
So why *don't* more creationists think like Todd Wood? What is the difficulty in recognizing the reality of current biology, the state of the theory of evolution (yes, it's still an applied science, not going away any time soon), and being upfront in challenging it on those grounds?