Creation Station
Education and Current Events
Creationist Urban Legends
by Sean Meek, Director of Project CREATION
In the last newsletter I documented some of the hoaxes promoted by
evolutionists over the years. While it is always fun to point out the
frauds perpetrated by the enemy, Creationists are not without some
myths of their own. There is, though, a significant difference between
Creationist and evolutionist errors. Evolutionists promote their
stories loudly and uncritically while they do all they can to cover up
their mistakes. At the same time I have read in Creationist books
and magazines reports that have openly pointed out
Creationist error when it is found. Unfortunately, even with the best
efforts some myths have gotten so entrenched it is almost impossible to
kill them. Following are a couple of myths that just don't want to die.
One of the most popular of what has become a Creationist urban legend
is the Darwin recantation myth known as the Lady Hope Story. The story
is that shortly before he died, Darwin told Lady Hope that he had been
misunderstood, that he hadn't really meant for his theory of evolution
to be taken seriously; it had just been some ideas that he had put out
for discussion. He then goes on to tell Lady Hope that these ideas were
taken too seriously by others who used them to make up a whole system
of evolutionary theory.
The problem is that the Lady Hope story was invented. It didn't begin
to circulate until 20 years after Darwin's death. Creationists have
investigated the story & found it to be without substantiation, as
well as being full of errors as to location and dates. Darwin knew
perfectly well what his theory meant. For instance, in the early
editions of his book On the Origin of Species, Darwin included a
reference to the Creator, but in later editions he removed it. In his
other book The Descent of Man and in his letters, he became overtly
atheistic. Darwin knew what he was doing and as he received increasing
support, he became more open about it.
The Lady Hope story was invented by someone in an attempt to discredit
Darwinism and has been circulating for over 100 years. Like all good
urban legends it just refuses to die, no matter what the facts are.
A more recent Creationist urban legend is the NASA Missing Day Myth.
This story has been circulating since the 1970's and tells how
scientists at NASA were doing astronomical computations and after
calculating planetary orbits and stellar positions, the computer found
that a day was "missing" from its calculations. Then the story tells
how someone mentioned Joshua's long day and Hezekiah's backward moving
shadow on the sundial and that these two events accounted
for the missing day. The story is nonsense. NASA has
denied it ever happened, but even if NASA had tried to do it, it would
be impossible. The only way that someone could find out if a day was
"missing" would be if they had a calendar that was absolutely accurate
for every day of the year for at least 3500 years. Such a calendar
doesn't exist. But it does make a good sounding story, so it continues
to circulate. I received an inquiry about it only a few months ago.
No matter how good these stories may sound, we can't use them. God
said so, and He even made a Commandment, the ninth, against doing it.
Evolutionists deliberately and routinely use little lies to promote the
big lie of evolution and that is one of the differences between them
and us.
