AiG—First on Archaeology Hit List

The latest issue of Archaeology (May–June 2003) slams “Pseudoscience in Cyberspace” and puts AiG at the top of its list of “pseudoarchaeological” sites. A serious charge. What’s so offensive about AiG’s Web site that attracted Archaeology’s big guns?

Surely, you’d think, AiG must have made some outlandish claims or blatant errors of fact about archaeological discoveries.

But no, Archaeology makes no reference to AiG’s well-researched articles on various archaeological debates (see Q&A: Archaeology); nor does it try to refute them. Instead, it complains that AiG is “a pro-creationist web site that seeks to prove, among other things, the presence of dinosaurs in the Bible and the fallacy of carbon-14 dating.”

Amazing.

What they don’t like is AiG’s interpretation of the facts based on a Biblical worldview.

These complaints have nothing to do with the science of archaeology. Apparently the magazine editors cannot find fault with AiG’s science or factual accuracy. What they don’t like is AiG’s interpretation of the facts based on a Biblical worldview.

The editors at Archaeology are attacking beliefs, not science. They clearly reject the possibility that God was an eyewitness to the key events in Earth history (Creation, Noah’s Flood, etc.) or that He left an infallible record of what happened.1 Instead, they assume a different version of history. They assume—without any possibility of proof—that the processes we see today have continued uninterrupted for millions of years.

In other words, the #1 condition for being labeled a “pseudoscientist” in Archaeology is to reject their materialistic worldview and to follow a Biblical worldview.

Just look at their two complaints about AiG: dinosaurs in the Bible and carbon-14 dating. If you believe what God’s Word says about early history, it’s obvious that dinosaurs are in the Bible—and that man walked with dinosaurs (see Q&A: Dinosaurs). The first man, Adam, was created on the same day as every “kind” of land animal, including dinosaurs.

As far as AiG’s effort to “prove” the “fallacy” of carbon-14 dating (see Q&A: Radiometric dating methods), creationists don’t deny the basic science of measuring the age of rocks. Creationists have spent many thousands on utilizing this science to show huge inconsistencies and absurdities in dating results (e.g. Dating Dilemma: Fossil Wood in “Ancient” Sandstone and Radioactive “Dating” in Conflict!). They are currently spending much more on the RATE research project (see Rating Radiodating) to advance our knowledge of radiometric dating. It’s just that we disagree with evolutionary assumptions about geologic conditions in the past, which scientists never saw and can’t verify.

Why is a secular magazine called Archaeology talking about dinosaurs in the Bible, anyway? Does it pretend to be an expert on what the Bible has to say? It’s obvious that this isn’t a debate about science at all, but a clash over worldviews.